D 

523 

K37 


ROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

KELLER 


li'l'illifi^i^nnlf„9i';„9^'-"'ORNIA.  SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  02584  3954 


UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIE30 


ID 

K37 


UNIVER 
CALIF 
SAN  I 


THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 


I 


THE  M  ACM  ILL  AN  COMPANY 

NBW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICACO  -    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limitkd 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 


ALBERT  OrKELLER 

PROFESSOR    OF   THE    SCIENCE    OF    SOCIETY 

IN   YALE    UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR   OP   "SOCIETAL  EVOLUTION    ' 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTMGHT,    1918, 

Bt  the  maomillan  company. 


Printed  from  type.     Published  March,  1918. 


Woriuooli  ^xess 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  — Berwick  &  Smith  Gk». 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


INTRODUCTION 

There  is  a  growing  sentiment  in  this  country 
that  what  Germany  has  come  to  stand  for  is 
utterly  irreconcilable  with  all  those  acquisitions 
of  human  society  —  freedom,  democracy,  hu- 
manity, Christianity  —  which  we  most  prize ; 
that  it  represents  a  grave  menace  to  them  all. 
This  sentiment,  with  its  attendant  foreboding,  I 
believe  to  be  substantially  correct,  so  that  it 
will  bear  examination  in  the  light  of  reason  and 
science.  I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  the  Ger- 
man code  of  international  behavior  constitutes  a 
direct  and  grave  challenge  to  the  essentials  of 
civilization ;  that  it  is  a  reversion  toward  an 
earlier  and  cruder  phase  of  societal  development ; 
and  that  it  must  be  extirpated  if  civilization  is 
to  go  forward  on  its  normal  course. 

If  reason  is  to  be  found  back  of  this  popular 
presentiment,  that  fact  will  confer  a  certain  solid- 
ity and  surety  upon  what  we  might  otherwise,  in 
the  face  of  specious  argument  or  unpleasant 
consequences,  cleave  to  less  tenaciously.  It  will 
lead  to  the  strengthening  of  hearts.     But  strong 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

hearts  are  what  we  require  in  these  times ;  for 
the  world  is  tiring  under  the  burden  of  its  loss 
and  misery,  and  even  the  sturdiest  has  need  of 
holding  his  convictions  fast.  There  is  also  an 
indeterminate  number  who  are  less  firm  in  the 
faith,  and  who  are  likely  to  falter  unless  they  are 
fortified  by  an  abiding  belief  that  this  challenge 
to  civilization  must  and  can  be  met  and  repelled, 
if  we  faint  not.  They  need  to  be  shown  that 
relentlessness  in  the  exaction  of  "restitution, 
reparation,  and  guarantees"  is  not  an  expression 
of  rage  and  revengefulness,  but  rather  of  the 
highest  form  of  humanity  —  of  interest  in  the 
welfare  of  all  men,  to  be  secured,  in  this  case,  by 
relieving  the  race  of  the  German  peril.  It  is 
"  Through  War  to  Peace,"  and  not  otherwise. 
A  faith  has  never  been  weakened  by  the  demon- 
stration that  it  had  reason  behind  it. 

Some  of  us  are  further  convinced  that  this 
peril  is  certain  to  be  eliminated,  now  or  later,  by 
the  operation  of  the  elemental  forces  which  have 
made  civiUzation  what  it  is.  Here  is  a  cause 
that  cannot  fail.  But  we  want  it  to  triumph  now 
rather  than  later.  For  it  is  at  the  cost  of  much 
human  agony  that  the  operation  of  these  ele- 
mental forces  is  hindered  and  retarded,  through 
a  failure   to   understand   and   work   with   them; 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

and  their  action  may  be  hastened,  with  the  result 
of  sparing  human  suffering,  if  we  seek  to  under- 
stand and  fall  in  with  their  massive  stress  and 
do  not,  for  the  sake  of  petty  sentiment,  throw 
ourselves,  as  chosen  victims,  across  their  path. 
This  issue  is  going  to  be  settled  aright  despite 
human  foolishness  —  despite  even  an  easy-going 
and  irrelevant  "magnanimity"  ;  and  if  we  can  see 
that  now,  and  not  try  to  stop  the  process  short  of 
a  definitive  decision,  we  shall  save  ourselves  and 
those  that  come  after  us  an  infinity  of  suffering. 

A  rational  justification  for  such  convictions 
appears,  I  think,  in  the  following  pages.  Events 
even  so  startling  as  those  of  the  present  fall  into 
line  as  episodes  of  society's  development,  if  the 
course  of  that  development  is  seen  in  perspective 
—  in  the  light,  that  is,  of  a  general  survey  of 
societal  evolution,  made  with  no  special  reference 
to  any  one  of  its  episodes  as  compared  with  the 
rest.  But  it  is  impossible  to  present  this  war 
in  such  a  perspective  without  devoting  some 
pages  to  an  indication  of  the  line  of  approach 
here  adopted,  and  without  using  a  minimum  of 
terminology.  This  clearing  of  the  ground  will 
doubtless  slow  up  the  pace  of  presentation  ap- 
preciably, but  it  has  to  be  done  if  the  conclusions 
in  the  last  few  chapters  -^  to  which  the  reader 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

who  is  impatient  of  the  approach  may  refer  — 
are  to  carry  more  weight  than  they  would  as 
mere  expressions  of  personal  opinion. 

Whatever  enlightenment  this  essay  has  to  offer 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  societies  are  here  viewed  as 
wholes  and  not  in  terms  of  their  ultimate  compo- 
nents, namely,  individuals.  Much  is  said  of  the 
dominance  in  societal  evolution  of  the  automatic, 
spontaneous,  and  impersonal,  as  against  the 
individual  and  purposeful.  It  is  in  part  for  the 
sake  of  emphasizing  this  point  of  approach  that 
I  use  the  adjective  "societal,"  meaning  "of 
society,"  instead  of  "social,"  which  has  no  pre- 
cise meaning.  It  is  my  belief  that  the  great  mass 
of  individuals  pursue  their  petty  interests  as  they 
see  them,  close  at  hand,  in  virtual  unconscious- 
ness of  the  wide  interests  of  the  society,  while 
the  society  moves  ponderously  on,  under  laws  of 
its  own,  through  a  succession  of  phases  which 
the  individual  has  to  accept,  much  as  he  accepts 
climate  or  rainfall,  as  conditions  of  life.  The 
occasional  endowed  individual  identifies  the  im- 
personal forces  in  the  field  and  seems  to  control 
them,  much  as  does  the  engineer,  by  moving  things 
into  or  out  of  their  way ;  but  the  vast  bulk  of 
mankind  live  on  unconscious  of  their  very  exist- 
ence, or  vaguely  sensing  it. 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

There  is  a  confused  view  of  society  that  may 
be  gotten  by  preoccupation  with  the  individual, 
his  psychology  and  his  "choices";  then  there  is 
another,  which  seems  to  some  of  us  to  offer 
superior  clarity,  that  takes  account  of  the  indi- 
vidual as  the  ultimate  component  of  society  and 
then  sets  him  aside.  The  latter  view  is  the  one 
taken  here.  It  is  not  so  obvious  as  the  other 
and  demands  emphasis ;  but  any  one  who  has 
caught  it  once  will  not  be  much  disturbed  by  the 
absence  of  fine  balancings  and  whittlings  in  the 
pages  that  are  to  follow. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  find  myself  in  no  great 
doubt  or  anxiety  as  to  the  ultimate  outcome  of 
this  international  conflict.  My  conclusions,  as 
worked  out  for  my  own  satisfaction,  are  something 
of  a  comfort  to  me;  and  I  hope  they  may  be  of 
use  to  others,  in  particular  to  those  who,  just 
because  they  are  enviably  able  to  lend  the  strength 
of  their  arms  to  the  cause  of  civilization  and 
human  freedom,  have  the  less  leisure  to  reflect 
over  the  wider  aspects  of  the  conflict. 

A.  G.  K. 

New  Haven,  December  27,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

Intboduction V 

I.    The      Impersonal      Chakacter      of      the 

Issue 1 

n.    Unforeseen  Consequences  to  Society       .  7 

m.    Automatic  Adjustments        ....  15 

rV.    A  People's  War 27 

V,    Folkways    and    Societal    Codes    of    Con- 
duct      35 

VI.     Conflict     an     Essential     to     Selection: 

Peaceful  Competition      ....  46 

VII.     Public  Opinion  and  the  National  Code    .  58 

Vin.    The  International  Peace-Group        .        .  73 

IX.    The  International  Code      ....  82 

X.    The  German  Code 98 

XI.    The   Challenge   to   the   International 

Code 108 

Xn.     The  Formation  of  a  World-Opinion           .  118 

Xni.    Selection  by  War 128 

XIV,    German  Fetish-Worship       ....  139 
XV.    The  One  Way  to  Upset  the  Fetish  .        .  149 
XVI.    On  Faltering  at  the  Finish        .        .        .  161 
XVn.     On    Intelligent  Adjustment    to    the  (In- 
evitable       173 


THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

I.   THE    IMPERSONAL    CHARACTER    OF 
THE  ISSUE 

To  all  of  us  most  of  the  time,  and  to  most  of 
us  all  of  the  time,  the  course  of  this  war  has  been 
a  succession  of  particular  events  and  of  the  doings 
of  particular  persons.  The  head-lines  are  scanned 
to  see  whether  the  battle-lines  have  changed, 
whether  this  or  that  wavering  neutral  has  thrown 
its  lot  into  the  struggle,  whether  the  prospects 
of  the  Loan  have  improved,  and  so  on.  Even 
more  typical  of  our  attitude  is  the  interest  in 
persons.  What  has  been  said  overnight  by 
Lloyd  George,  the  German  Chancellor,  Trotzky, 
President  Wilson,  Colonel  Roosevelt?  Has  Edi- 
son discovered  anything?  Has  Hoover  any  new 
project?  Are  there  any  more  revelations  from 
the  Department  of  State  concerning  German 
diplomacy  ?  Or  —  a  matter  of  still  more  in- 
timate  personal   interest  —  is   the   acquaintance. 


2  THROUGH   WAR   TO   PEACE 

friend,  brother,  or  son  about  to  be  called  ?  Is 
the  reader  of  the  day's  news  himself  to  be 
drafted  ? 

We  cannot  help  being  interested  in  these  im- 
mediate things.  That  is  the  way  we  live  — 
amidst  the  definite  and  immediate ;  and  then 
we  think  with  less  strain  if  we  think  in  terms  of 
persons.  In  fact,  the  race  has  always  personal- 
ized the  less  tangible  and  more  abstract  things, 
for  by  such  means  it  has  been  possible  to  tie  up 
floating  and  evasive  conceptions  so  that  they  can 
be  found  again  and  dealt  with.  The  vast  im- 
personalities that  control  our  destiny  —  Nature, 
Chance,  God  —  are  rendered  into  terms  that 
men  are  more  used  to  handle.  It  is  as  if  one 
should  meet  some  diflScult  proposition,  full  of 
subtleties  of  thought,  in  a  partially  known  foreign 
language;  he  will  feel  more  secure  if  he  gets  it 
across  into  the  mother-tongue  before  he  tries 
to  do  much  with  it.  The  de-personalization  of 
what  has  been  long  personalized  has  demanded  a 
tedious  process  of  mental  discipline  and  develop- 
ment. "It  is  difficult,"  writes  Darwin,  "to 
avoid  personifying  the  word  Nature";  and  he 
warns  against  the  superficial  interpretation  that 
is  commonly  put  upon  the  term  by  the  reader, 
although  the  author  is  employing  it,  for  brevity's 


IMPERSONAL   CHARACTER  OF  THE   ISSUE     3 

sake,  to  cover  "the  aggregate  action  and  product 
of  many  natural  laws." 

But  absorption  with  the  immediate  and  per- 
sonal, though  natural  enough,  does  not  make 
for  comprehensiveness  of  view.  It  prevents  us 
from  seeing  the  woods  for  the  trees.  To  see  the 
woods,  it  is  necessary  to  secure  distance  and 
detachment.  Yet  a  view  of  the  woods  is  some- 
times most  desirable,  especially  if  one  is  confused 
by  the  number  and  apparently  unmeaning  loca- 
tion of  the  trees.  To  see  the  forest  it  is  necessary 
to  get  outside  of  it,  whether  that  be  done  by  some- 
how ascending  above  it,  or  by  having  recourse 
to  the  mind's  eye  and  viewing  the  broad  lay  of 
the  land  from  the  mapped-out  results  of  the 
experience  of  others. 

I  suppose  that  no  one  will  quarrel  very  much 
over  the  aptness  of  this  analogy  to  the  present 
facts.  In  the  matter  of  this  war-situation  we 
are  wandering  in  the  woods,  and  most  of  us  are 
concerned  as  to  where  we  are  and  how  and  at 
what  place  we  are  going  to  get  out.  But  the 
analogy  is  employed  merely  by  way  of  setting 
the  situation  before  us ;  it  is  not  conceived  to 
carry  any  weight  of  argument. 

In  viewing  the  course  of  the  war,  then,  atten- 
tion  has   been   much   focussed   upon   persons  — 


4  THROUGH   WAR  TO  PEACE 

personages,  perhaps,  might  be  the  better  term. 
But  this  tendency  goes  farther.  Human  groups, 
such  as  the  Bolsheviki,  the  War  Council,  the 
pacifists,  and  even  larger  groups  or  societies, 
as  the  Belgians,  Jugo-Slavs,  Entente  Allies,  or 
Neutrals,  are  seen  as  a  combination  of  the  in- 
dividuals that  compose  them  rather  than  in  their 
impersonal  corporate  form.  In  fact,  we  are 
prone  to  think  of  any  human  society,  or  of  Society 
in  general,  in  terms  of  its  components  rather 
than  as  an  entity  in  and  of  itself.  We  also  tend 
to  personify  Society  as  we  do  Nature,  and  do  not 
ordinarily  think  of  it  (to  adapt  Darwin's  words)  as 
the  aggregate  action  and  product  of  many  societal 
laws. 

This  conception  of  human  society  as  a  sort  of 
composite  of  individuals,  having  no  special  being 
of  its  own,  is  an  easy  and  obvious  one;  and  it 
has  been  elaborated  by  theorists.  These  hold, 
briefly  stated,  that  to  understand  society  the 
object  of  interest  and  study  is  the  individual ; 
and  that,  since  the  mind  of  the  latter  is  the  part 
of  him  that  attends  to  his  social  relations  and 
interactions,  the  prime  object  in  the  study  of 
society  is  to  become  clear  on  individual  psy- 
chology. Study  the  human  intellect  and  you  are 
on  the  way  to  an  understanding  of  the  "social 


IMPERSONAL  CHARACTER  OF  THE  ISSUE      5 

mind,"  which  directs  society's  destiny.  Then 
presently  you  issue  into  "social  psychology"  or 
"psychological  sociology,"  and  the  keys  to  the 
whole  matter  are  delivered  into  your  hands. 
Social  development,  we  are  told,  is  the  result  of 
the  reasoned  and  purposeful  action  of  the  in- 
dividual. An  extreme  of  this  view  would,  with 
Carlyle,  see  the  history  of  a  nation  in  the  biog- 
raphy of  its  heroic  figures.  A  social  philosophy 
of  this  order  is  a  popular  one,  for  it  lends  learned 
support  to  that  current  prejudice  toward  interest 
in  the  personal  and  immediate  (which  we  think 
we  know  without  so  much  study,  living  in  it  as 
we  do)  to  which  allusion  was  made  at  the  outset. 

It  is  the  object  of  the  present  writing,  however, 
to  present  that  vast  episode  in  societal  evolution 
(meaning  the  evolution  of  human  society),  which 
is  working  itself  out  before  our  eyes,  from  an 
altogether  different  point  of  view  —  one  which 
recognizes  the  individual  as  a  component  part  of 
society,  and  then  ignores  him,  much  as  the  phys- 
iologist recognizes  the  cell  as  the  undoubted 
final  component  of  the  body,  but  then  ignores  it 
in  favor  of  a  study  of  the  body  as  a  whole.  The 
body  is  an  object  of  study  by  itself,  and  results 
are  gotten  from  physiology  that  could  not  be 
attained  by  restricting  attention  to  the  cell.     I 


6  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

do  not  intend,  though,  to  enter  into  a  technical 
controversy,  but  rather  to  cite,  first,  a  series  of 
societal  changes  belonging  to  the  war-period,  and 
for  whose  appearance  the  reasoned  purposefulness 
of  the  individual  does  not  seem  responsible ;  and 
then  to  present  the  advantages  of  what  is  to  me 
a  more  commanding  point  of  view  for  the  obser- 
vation and  understanding  of  the  societal  forma- 
tions and  dissolutions  that  are  taking  place  as  the 
days  go  by. 


II.   UNFORESEEN  CONSEQUENCES  TO 
SOCIETY 

Societal  changes  of  great  moment  have  taken 
place,  not  only  in  Europe,  but  in  the  rest  of  the 
world  as  well,  since  the  war  began.  I  do  not 
refer  so  much  to  the  almost  complete  national 
destruction  of  Belgium  or  Serbia,  under  the  iron 
heel  itself,  as  to  the  less  direct  consequences  of 
the  strife.  I  take  examples  almost  at  random,  as 
they  suggest  themselves.  In  England  there  has 
come  to  pass  a  centralization  of  government, 
together  with  a  decline  of  parliamentary  control, 
that  must  startle  the  elderly  Briton  who  contem- 
plates it.  Again,  the  women  are  doing  men's 
work,  are  beginning,  in  large  numbers,  to  work 
for  wages,  and  they  are  not  very  far  from  getting 
the  full  franchise.  The  Irish  question  has  taken 
on  a  new  phase.  There  is  a  "back  to  the  land  " 
movement  that  represents  a  degree  of  reversal 
of  the  urban  migration.  People  who  used  to  be 
filled  with  pious  horror  at  the  thought  of  a  man 
marrying  his  deceased  wife's  sister  are  reconsider- 

7 


8  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

ing  the  status  of  illegitimacy  —  in  view  of  the 
presence  of  "war-babies"  —  and  there  has  even 
been  reported  some  talk,  on  the  part  of  perfectly 
reputable  people,  of  examining  into  the  merits  of 
plural  marriage.  Here  is  a  catalogue,  by  no 
means  exhaustive,  of  societal  right-abouts. 

The  salient  feat  performed  by  the  French  has 
consisted  in  divesting  themselves  of  what  used 
to  be  regarded  as  their  traditional  race-character. 
It  is  now  demonstrated  that  they  are  as  steady 
and  enduring  as  the  best.  They  are  as  far  as 
possible  from  being  a  nation  of  frivolous,  excit- 
able, quickly-tiring  pleasure-lovers.  Very  likely 
the  former  accounts  of  them  did  them  injustice, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  now  that  their  national 
life  runs  more  seriously  and  strongly  within 
more  secure  channels  than  it  has  done  before. 
And  such  a  basic  change  draws  a  far-flung]  se- 
quence of  institutional  modifications  in  its  wake. 
Further,  French  life  and  societal  structure  are 
being  much  altered  by  the  presence  in  France  of 
representatives  of  almost  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  many  of  whom,  we  are  told,  mean  to  remain. 
Some  fear  that  the  very  national  identity  of 
France  lies  in  the  balance. 

The  name  Russia  summons  up  a  scene  of 
institutional  upheaval  and  transformation.     The 


UNFORESEEN  CONSEQUENCES  TO  SOCIETY      9 

outstanding  fact  is  the  passing  of  the  Little  Father 
and  the  emergence  of  a  new  set  of  national  figures, 
pursuing  new  methods  under  novel  and  even 
weird  compulsions.  Mother  Vodka  is  banished  as 
Mother  Breshkovskaya  returns.  The  mujik  has 
been  torn  out  of  his  isolation,  where  the  dunghill 
before  the  hut  has  been  the  most  prominent  feature 
on  the  horizon  of  a  sordid  life,  and  has  been  not 
only  smartly  uniformed  and  drilled  to  stand  erect, 
but  also  transported  to  unknown  countries  and 
his  eyes  perforce  opened  to  unfamiliar  things. 
His  head  has  been  filled  also  with  undigested 
economic  and  social  theory,  and  has  reacted  upon 
this  pabulum  in  fantastic  and  unedifying  ways. 
But  it  is  clear  that  he  will  never  again  be  what  he 
was  or  settle  down  contentedly  to  the  old  life. 
Russia  may  be  an  incalculable  variable  for  some 
time  to  come ;  but  the  limit  it  approaches  can 
never  be  that  status  ante  bellum.  For  the  deeps 
have  been  stirred. 

If  the  French  have  divested  themselves  of  their 
traditional  race-character,  the  Germans  have  done 
no  less.  I  do  not  need  to  go  into  the  repulsive 
tale ;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  manifestations 
of  German  manners  and  morals  were  received  by 
the  world  with  utter  incredulity  until  the  evidence 
became  irresistible.     It  is  a  question  sometimes 


10  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

debated  whether  this  barbarity  was  or  was  not  in 
the  national  make-up ;  whether  there  was  any 
real  change  here  or  merely  a  revelation.  It  looks 
as  if  Germany  was  so  ready  for  predatory  war  that 
not  much  adjustment  to  its  conditions  was  neces- 
sary. It  is  all  a  question  of  whether  the  people 
have  been  with  their  rulers  or  not ;  and  the  con- 
sideration of  that  question  must  be  postponed 
for  the  moment.  There  have  been  recurrences 
of  unrest  in  Germany,  followed  by  ostensible 
yieldings  and  cajolery  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ment ;  but  opinion  as  to  what  is  really  occurring, 
or  about  to  occur,  must  remain,  in  the  absence  of 
trustworthy  evidence,  largely  inferential,  or  based 
upon  general  considerations. 

And  we  know  as  little  about  what  is  happening 
in  Germany's  vassal  states,  except  that,  whatever 
it  is,  it  is  directed  or  countenanced  from  Berlin. 
There  are  indications  that  sections  of  the  Alliance 
are  somewhat  restive  under  an  inexorable  control 
that  holds  them  from  making  adjustments  which 
they  are  not  loath  to  contemplate.  Not  Turkey 
—  for  she  has  no  qualms  in  remaining  what  she 
is  and  has  been  —  but  the  Dual  Empire,  and 
even  Bulgaria,  give  signs  of  concern  over  the 
state  in  which  they  find  themselves ;  and  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other  seems  entirely  willing   to 


UNFORESEEN  CONSEQUENCES  TO  SOCIETY    11 

embrace  all  the  methods  of  their  unscrupulous 
pace-setter.  Only  Turkey  finds  herself  in  sym- 
pathetic harmony  with  her  own  type  of  theory 
and  practice. 

Of  all  the  societal  changes  consequent  on  the 
war  none  are  more  astonishing,  though  some  are 
more  dramatic,  than  those  which  have  occurred  in 
the  United  States.  It  is  evident  that  our  former 
"beneficent  isolation"  belongs  to  history.  It 
suffered  inroads  as  a  consequence  of  the  Spanish 
War  and  the  brief  imperialistic  fever ;  and 
subsequent  improvements  in  annihilation  of  dis- 
tance had  left  it  but  a  shell.  Industrialism  under 
isolation  has  ceased,  for  us,  to  represent  adjust- 
ment to  our  national  life-conditions.  This  the 
war  has  revealed.  And  now  we  have  swung  far 
toward  militancy,  if  not  toward  militarism.^  A 
few  years  ago  a  military  and  naval  budget  of  a 
few  hundred  millions  was  considered  scandalously 
high,  and,  indeed,  inconsonant  with  the  spirit  of 
American  institutions ;  twenty,  or  even  ten  years 
ago,  the  man  who  proposed  conscription  might  as 
well  have  suggested  having  a  king.  And  now  we 
approve  almost  unanimously  a  budget  of  billions 
and  compulsory  service  —  if  the  votes  of  Congress, 
the  sentiment  of  the  press,  the  general  acquiescence 

^  For  the  distinction  here  made  between  the  two  terms,  see  p.  126. 


12  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

and  even  enthusiastic  support  of  the  people,  and 
the  spirit  of  the  national  army  may  form  a  basis  for 
judgment.  There  can  be  no  question  about  our  so- 
called  industrialism  having  experienced  a  shrewd 
and  rugged  wrench  in  the  direction  of  militancy. 
In  the  face  of  a  menace  and  a  need,  our  society 
has  stirred  uneasily,  groped  about  after  relief, 
pawed  over  the  traditional  expedients,  and  finally 
settled  down  upon  the  most  drastic  of  them. 

Delegation  of  power  to  the  executive  has  sur- 
passed anything  the  country  has  ever  seen  before ; 
and  an  era  of  control  over  industries  and  of  price- 
fixing  has  set  in  that  reminds  one  in  turn  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  of  socialistic  Utopias.  To  a  few 
men  have  been  committed  inquisitorial  powers 
which  would  have  been  impossible  of  delegation  a 
few  years,  or  even  months,  ago.  And  among 
the  startling  innovations  comes  the  movement 
toward  economy ;  Cassandras  who  have  bewailed 
our  wastefulness  now  stand  aghast  and  fall  back- 
ward before  the  sudden  realization  of  their  wildest 
dreams.  For  there  is  a  goodly  nucleus  of  citizens 
who  are  making  a  business  of  saving  and  who  are 
seizing  the  opportunity  to  edge  the  masses  over 
in  that  direction.  There  is  also  a  large,  though 
indeterminate  body  of  our  fellow-citizens,  male 
and  female,  who  are  doing  something  which  bears 


UNFORESEEN  CONSEQUENCES  TO  SOCIETY    13 

at  least  an  appearance  of  usefulness  —  knitting  in 
the  first  row  of  the  balcony,  for  example — instead 
of  employing  their  time  and  strength  in  exclusively 
non-productive  or  wasteful  activities.  We  do  not 
now  hear  so  much  of  bridge  and  the  fox-trot. 

Again,  a  revision  of  policy  in  regard  to  immigra- 
tion, and  in  particular  of  the  attitude  toward  the 
foreign-born,  is  indicated.  Doubts  as  to  the  un- 
limited efficiency  of  the  "melting-pot"  have  been 
voiced  ere  now ;  but  the  revelation  that  some  of 
our  accessions  to  population  —  and  those  not  the 
most  recent,  either  —  still  harbor  a  feeling  toward 
the  fatherland  that  is  somewhat  warmer  and  more 
palpable  and  practical  than  sentimental  reminis- 
cence, has  come  as  a  great  shock  to  every  patriot. 
As  a  measure  of  common  caution,  a  revision  of 
easy-going  and  trustful  methods,  and  of  careless 
optimism,  is  demanded.  Foreign  languages  in 
schools,  foreign  news-sheets,  and  foreign  asso- 
ciations designed  to  keep  up  home-ties,  not  to 
mention  more  sinister  purposes,  are  now  at  a 
discount.  The  advocates  of  restriction  of  immi- 
gration have  been  given  a  considerable  lift. 

Not  to  prolong  this  list,  but  one  additional 
alteration  of  societal  policy  will  be  noted.  It  was 
a  statesman's  insight  that  saw  in  the  Mexican 
difficulty  a  chance  to  strengthen  our  ties   with 


14  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

South  America ;  but  the  war  has  infused  an  ele- 
ment of  fellowship  that  has  not  existed  before. 
Common  danger  and  common  resentment  have 
fostered  sentiments  that  are  replacing  the  former 
uninformed  indifference  or  even  impatient  dis- 
esteem  on  our  part,  and  the  resentful  mortification 
and  suspicion  on  the  other  side,  with  a  mutual 
toleration,  understanding,  and  appreciation  that 
promise  much  to  the  interest  of  both  parties. 

This  catalogue  of  societal  changes  during  the 
war-period  is  not  complete  —  something  un- 
foreseen is  happening  to  organized  forms  of 
religion,  for  example  —  but  it  is  probably  not 
far  from  representative.  With  this  type  of 
event  in  mind,  we  now  go  on  to  inquire  to  what 
extent  the  reasoned  purposefulness  of  the  in- 
dividual was  responsible  for  its  appearance. 


III.  AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS 

Had  the  war  not  occurred,  most  of  the  societal 
changes  just  cited,  and  many  another  that  the 
reader  can  call  to  mind,  would  not  have  taken 
place  now,  or  perhaps  at  all.  Very  likely  the 
Russian  revolution  was  due  in  the  near  future; 
but  the  American  swing  towards  militancy  was 
not.  In  all  cases  the  war-conditions  were  the  pre- 
cipitating agency.  Much  in  the  way  of  societal 
structure  has  been  awaiting  selection,  or  has  been 
involved  in  the  process,  that  would  not  have 
attained  to  a  speedy  verdict  but  for  the  war, 
with  its  general  dislocations,  revelations,  and 
readjustments.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  war 
was  not  started  for  the  realization  of  any  such  pur- 
poses. The  Germans  did  not  set  out  to  get  the 
vote  for  British  women  nor  yet  to  enforce  economy 
in  this  country ;  not  even  the  British  or  the 
Americans  had  either  of  these  ends  in  view  in 
entering  the  conflict.  Germany,  in  fact,  did  not 
want  either  England  or  the  United  States  to 
participate ;  she  planned  to  have  them  both  go 
15 


16  THROUGH   WAR  TO  PEACE 

their  unsuspecting,  careless,  and  decadent  way 
until  she  got  ready  for  them.  There  was  no  pur- 
pose in  the  minds  of  any  foreigners,  for  example, 
that  we  should  adopt  conscription  —  it  is  cer- 
tainly no  vindication  of  reasoned  purposefulness 
when  the  actual  results  come  to  the  purposers  as 
a  surprise,  involving  disappointment  and  even 
consternation. 

The  societal  changes  in  the  several  countries 
developed  automatically  and  impersonally  in  so 
far  as  the  originators  of  the  conflict  were  con- 
cerned. The  state  of  war  drew  in  its  train  a  set 
of  consequences ;  situations  appeared,  for  the 
most  part  unplanned  and  unforeseen,  to  which  the 
several  societies  secured  adjustment  by  their 
respective  alterations  of  policy.  Let  us  look  first 
into  the  process  of  adjustment  to  these  situations 
consequent  upon  war,  to  see  whether  it  should 
be  called  automatic  or  referred  to  the  reason  and 
purpose  of  the  individual ;  then  we  can  go  back 
and  inquire  whether  the  state  of  war  itself  was 
brought  about  by  automatically  acting,  impersonal 
forces  or  by  those  same  faculties  of  the  individual. 

Broadly  speaking,  all  adjustment  of  society  to 
its  life-conditions  is  enforced  by  the  pain  of 
maladjustment,  or  the  prospect  of  such  pain,  as 
sensed    by    numbers    of    individuals ;     and    it    is 


AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS  17 

secured  when  numbers  have  concurred  in  a  course 
of  action  that  brings  relief.  But  it  is  inadmissible 
to  credit  that  action  to  individual  reason  and 
purpose  unless  a  great  majority,  at  least,  of  the 
society  members  have  really  taken  in  the  broad 
situation  confronting  the  society  and  have  de- 
liberately chosen  the  expedient  that  was  adopted. 
This  very  rarely  occurs  unless  the  situation  is 
exceptionally  easy  of  visualization ;  and  an  inter- 
national situation  —  generally  foreseen  by  but 
few  —  is  seldom,  if  ever,  that.  It  is  hardly  fair 
to  give  credit  to  individual  reason  and  purpose 
if  only  a  few  have  really  visualized  the  situation, 
and  the  rest  have  gone  as  the  few  wanted  to  go, 
under  a  variety  of  irrelevant  motives.  But  we 
hasten  to  concrete  illustration. 

In  England  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  situation 
following  on  war  was  a  growing  disproportion 
between  the  sexes.  In  the  face  of  the  traditional 
division  of  labor  by  sex  —  into  man's  work  and 
woman's  work  —  this  meant  a  depletion  of  the 
male  labor-supply,  and  a  depletion  coincident 
with  an  increasing  demand  for  labor.  Adjustment 
was  possible  only  by  the  elimination,  or  at  least 
suspension,  of  the  time-honored  tradition.  There 
was,  however,  no  general  comprehension  of  the 
scope  of  such  a  change ;    there  was  action,  first 


18  rZ7  ;     GH  WAB   TO  PEACE 

UB.   9Mm^   CnuL    Vl^ujcX^    i^StM.  u.    Oa     fc-^-  T  .   "  _  ^  ~  ^ 

unn^lecting  -s-f  r?:?r>?rv=     _t 
and  was  t.::  • 

« 
ibUflittiiis  m  concert r     :   -        -     "     :_ r  :_ r - 

the  opemns  Ofipar:  z'^ 

Tacamn,  nmdi  as  :.   .:    _:-    _ 

flmr  tovazd  a  cycimie  center.     7    t  —    -  m-i. 

Idbnrod    tbeir    intexests     l.s     '^  zi : 

eoonomie  necessity,  nnpati -'  :-t  "^     _ 

deaie  to  do  as  othexs    ^  t  : 

loyalty,  fear  of  the  aMmy  — 

less  many  another  mothre  rz      t  :     .:-  :z  l:  ^ 

The  atnatian  fs.?f:^  *}:-    '        l 

doubdess.  b^  2,  :t—         -i   i_^i:v 

faasL-     :  -    ^  T  :  1.311  —  <rf   whifLi  i 

lea^  7  T 1  zioore,  mote  later  en.    What  is  smne- 

tiin  '  r '^efite"  may  hame  figured  out  the 

cxHi  Prr»babfy  not  moKe  than  cne  in  a 

the  r-:T:T:    an   ammuniiiop-^ilant  or  de- 

fiwerri  i_  :.  'JL     ::-:  ~.>3  g^  the  Tote  far  women; 

yet     1        "    -Lr  suffrage  canse  was  one 

of  tl  It  was  in  good  part 

the    _t1-  :  of  their  indnstzial 

efficiency,  i  _7_:  7:  otism,  that  db- 

po&ri    -T    T o      "     :  '  i.jrt.     It  had 

'^.TT-   -.^r  T-:  ; : ;  T  ;      '  tZ^ss  ui  jiajia.  ^nd  brain,  as 


AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS  19 

well  as  the  emptiness  of  arms,  that  had  goaded 
many  women  to  an  offensively  restless  activity; 
but  now,  in  the  face  of  the  opening  opportunities, 
even  the  militants,  who  had  been  pouring  acid 
into  mail-boxes  and  assaulting  premiers,  dropped 
their  special  purposes  for  the  time  and  went  to 
work  —  later  to  find  their  desires  moving  toward 
realization  by  way  of  a  course  of  indirection  fore- 
seen by  few.  The  fact  that  married  as  well  as 
single  women  are  taking  their  places  beside  men 
as  income-earners  for  life  threatens  even  man's 
headship  of  the  family,  as  well  as  his  monopoly 
of  the  franchise. 

In  cases  like  this  (including  those  cited  in  the 
preceding  chapter)  there  is  a  predominant  element 
of  unreasoned  or  even  unwitting  contribution  to 
the  big  result.  People  act  on  impulses  of  various 
description ;  upon  sentiments  that  are  diffuse, 
customary,  or  habitual  rather  than  rational  and 
discriminating.  It  is  usually  the  immediate 
personal  interest  only  —  generally  an  economic 
one  —  that  is  pursued  with  a  genuinely  rational 
and  purposeful  motive.  Loyalty  and  patriotism 
as  motives,  however  creditable  to  the  individual, 
as  well  as  eflBcient  and  wholesome  for  the  nation, 
are  not  usually  rational.  It  is  necessary  to  be 
very  clear  here  on  the  distinction  between  that 


20  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

which  we  know  to  be  the  product  of  reason  and  that 
which  looks,  at  first  sight,  as  if  it  must  have  been. 
An  expedient  that  "works"  always  impresses 
the  partially  informed  as  necessarily  due  to  the 
planful  action  of  some  person  —  man  or  god.  The 
camel's  foot  looks  as  if  it  had  been  skilfully  planned 
for  desert  use;  the  more  exact  our  mathematics, 
says  Maeterlinck,  in  his  "Life  of  the  Bee,"  the 
nearer  do  we  come  to  the  formula  of  cell-construc- 
tion practiced  in  the  hive.  But  there  is  no  ques- 
tion here  of  anything  but  the  unplanned  and 
automatic.  When  natural  selection  is  done,  the 
product  is  always  "rational" ;  science  has  always 
stumbled  along  after  such  facts.  The  nature- 
process  issues  in  that  which  will  stand  to  reason. 
But  now  the  "social  process"  also  can  show  the 
same  sort  of  issue.  The  savages  often  practice 
what  is  in  effect  a  quarantine  on  the  house  of 
death ;  they  apply  heat  to  a  lame  muscle  to  expel 
pain ;  they  proscribe  close  in-marriage.  But  that 
any  such  regulations  have  adequate  reasoning 
and  purpose  behind  them  few  would  be  found  to 
maintain.  We  cannot  any  longer  accept  the 
ghost-theory  that  fathered  them.  Such  action 
can  be  adjudged  rational  only  if  observed  in 
retrospect  and  in  ignorance  of  its  antecedents. 
So  seen,  there  is  a  strong  suggestion  of  reason ; 


I 


AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS  21 

but  the  reason  is  after  the  act,  and  is  put  in  by  the 
more  sophisticated  observer.  It  is  clear,  then, 
that  the  customary  or  habitual  may  show  the 
same  sort  of  rationality  as  the  "natural,"  and 
reveal  results  that  reason  would  be  proud  to  be 
credited  with,  and  sometimes  tries  to  appropri- 
ate. 

The  occasion  for  drawing  this  distinction  was 
the  remark  that  loyalty  and  patriotism  are  not 
usually  rational.  They  are  matters  of  feeling 
and  habit.  They  lie  in  custom.  But  the  ex- 
pediency of  many  such  social  usages  is  so  evi- 
dent, that  is,  they  work  so  well,  that  they  are 
credited  to  reason.  In  reality  they  have  survived 
selection  just  as  the  nature-products  have ;  only 
the  selection  is  on  the  plane  of  societal,  not  organic 
evolution.  It  could  be  shown  that  patriotism, 
and  even  jingoism,  are  sentiments  that  serve  a 
society  well,  and  have  thus  had  a  high  survival- 
value  in  the  course  of  its  evolution.  But  it 
should  now  be  clear  that  it  will  not  do  to  consider 
an  adjustment  made  by  society  to  be  the  result  of 
individual  purposeful  reasoning  because  of  the 
patriotism  behind  it.  If  so,  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  the  condition  created  by  the  dispro- 
portion of  the  sexes  in  England,  a  consequence  of 
the  war,  evoked,  in  the  form  of  a  far-reaching 


22  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

societal  change,  a  reasoned  and  purposeful  response 
on  the  part  of  individuals. 

It  is  difficult  to  descry  much  response  of  the 
rational  order,  or  much  even  that  might  be  mis- 
taken for  such,  in  the  Russian  doings.  The 
impression  here  is  as  of  behemoth  lurching  un- 
easily about  and  making  uncertain  starts,  now 
this  way  and  now  that,  under  the  stress  of  unde- 
fined, ill-defined,  and  fleeting  impulses  —  a  vision 
of  the  crudely  automatic.  If  adjustment  comes 
about  eventually,  it  will  be  through  the  lumbering 
and  costly  process  of  trial  and  failure,  and  that 
irrespective  of  whether  or  not  a  glittering  mahout 
rides  on  the  monster's  head  as  it  finally  plods 
into  some  course  of  adequate  adjustment.  All 
varieties  of  unreasoned  and  irrational  cross- 
purpose  are  here  having  their  day. 

In  the  United  States  a  better  informed  people 
stands  a  more  hopeful  chance  of  thinking  a  new 
situation  out  and  acting  purposefully  in  the  light 
of  reflection.  Take  the  movement  looking  to 
economy  in  living.  Saving  in  the  face  of  want  is 
a  pretty  obvious  expedient,  and  also  it  has  to  do 
with  concrete  and  tangible  things.  It  does  not 
demand  great  intellectual  tension;  even  the 
savage  does  it.  In  this  country,  ease  in  the  dis- 
semination  of   programs   of   saving,    and    of  the 


AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS  23 

simple  considerations  back  of  them,  further  aids 
the  application  of  reason-directed  purpose.  It  is 
apparently  a  hard  case  for  alignment  under  the 
automatic  category.  It  is  not  denied  that  the 
controllers  of  food,  coal,  and  other  indispensables 
will  be  able,  by  their  propaganda,  to  enlist  the 
rational  support  of  millions.  However,  even 
here,  the  presence  of  the  impersonal  and  automatic 
can  be  made  out  clearly  enough.  Many  will 
save,  not  because  they  sense  the  pecuhar  reasons 
for  so  doing,  but  because  they  will  automatically 
cease  to  consume  the  scarce  and  high-priced 
articles.  And  there  are  many  who  will  never 
accept  the  reasonableness  of  economy-programs, 
but,  whatever  they  do  —  evade  or  obey  —  it  will 
be  done  unintelligently.  Reason  will  be  enlisted 
by  others,  but  only  to  support  self-indulgence  and 
selfishness.  Such  unintelligent  docility  or  im- 
willing  acquiescence  are  far  from  being  reasoned 
purposefulness  in  the  face  of  a  recognized  societal 
issue.  Even  those  individuals  who  economize 
"for  the  country,"  and  do  not  go  behind  the 
phrase,  afford  no  evidence  for  the  theorist  who 
insists  that  societal  adjustment  is  by  way  of  the 
intelligent,  purposeful  action  of  individuals  in 
the  face  of  visualized  and  understood  conditions. 
The  automatic  element  is  more  marked  as  the 


24  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

case  is  less  concrete  and  immediate.  There  are 
many  persons  in  this  enlightened  land  of  op- 
portunity who  have  not  the  imagination  to 
visualize  anything  but  the  most  concrete  and 
immediate.  Their  spheres  of  comprehension  are 
narrowly  circumscribed,  and  outside  are  merely 
ambiguous  forms  and  fantastic  hopes  and  fears. 
Often,  however,  they  will  take  leading  readily 
enough,  especially  if  they  are  vaguely  frightened, 
and  if  the  leading  does  not  impose  too  great  a 
sacrifice  of  immediate  interests.  They  are  not 
moved  by  any  theoretical  or  "academic"  con- 
siderations and  are  not  critical  where  their  feelings 
are  enlisted.  What  they  need  to  move  them  is 
suggestion,  applied  and  re-applied.  Here  is  the 
hope  of  the  propagandist. 

"Too  dark  and  pessimistic  a  picture,"  some  one 
objects.  Perhaps  so  ;  but  it  must  be  realized  that 
if  the  theory  of  reasoned,  purposeful,  individual 
action  as  the  agency  of  society's  adjustment  is 
to  be  maintained,  it  must  cover  not  only  the 
"classes,"  but  the  "masses."  The  latter  form 
the  bulk  of  any  society,  and  if  it  is  to  be  moved, 
they  must  be  moved.  These  are  the  people  many 
of  whom  crave  the  yellow  journal  and  are  un- 
critical of  its  sensational  appeal  to  the  feelings  and 
prejudices.     Here  are  those  who  cannot  be  shown 


AUTOMATIC  ADJUSTMENTS  25 

a  fact  so  obvious  as  that  the  potato,  however 
scarce  and  costly,  is  not  the  sole  food  appropriate 
for  a  laborer.  There  are  those  among  us  who 
Hve  in  an  adherence  to  tradition  about  as  in- 
telligent as  that  of  any  primitive  tribe.  There 
are  as  few  of  this  class  in  this  country  as  in  any 
other,  but  they  cannot  fairly  be  ignored.  They 
cannot  be  rightly  included  under  a  sweeping 
theory  of  societal  adaptation  as  performed  by  the 
intelligent  and  purposeful  response  of  individuals. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  should  a  theory  of 
automatic  adaptation  be  so  sweeping  as  to  take 
no  account  of  the  relatively  few  thinkers.  I  am 
interested  here  in  exhibiting  the  presence  of  the 
ignored  automatic  element  rather  than  in  claiming 
everything  for  it.  It  is  commonly  lost  to  calcu- 
lation, but  it  ought  not  to  be,  for  it  is  the  basic 
element.  It  dominates  even  when  there  are 
purposeful  reasoners  in  seats  of  power,  for  the 
reasoners  cannot  go  ahead  without  reference  to 
public  opinion.  Facing  a  situation  as  we  do, 
where  economy  is  plainly  called  for,  many 
respond  intelligently  and  at  once ;  it  may  even 
be  that  such  persons  can,  in  effect,  respond 
vicariously  for  the  rest.  But  if  they  do  that, 
forcing  or  cajoling  the  rest  into  acting  as  the 
intelligent  think  best,  then  society's  adjustment 


26  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

is  not,  in  any  reasonable  interpretation  of  the 
case,  one  referable  to  the  intellect  and  purpose 
of  its  constituent  individuals.  But,  with  this 
turn  of  the  discussion  toward  the  matter  of 
leadership,  we  are  drawn  into  considerations  of  a 
still  more  general  order. 


IV.     A  PEOPLE'S  WAR 

There  is  thus  much  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
several  changes  in  societal  arrangements  and 
habitudes,  effected  in  this  and  that  society  in 
adjustment  to  war-conditions,  are  typically  auto- 
matic in  their  development.  It  is  clear  enough 
that  most  of  these  war-conditions,  sex-dispropor- 
tion, for  instance,  were  and  are  inevitable,  repre- 
senting as  they  do  a  set  of  sequences  set  afloat 
automatically  by  the  presence  of  war.  It  remains 
to  inquire  whether  the  war  itself  came  about  auto- 
matically or  as  the  result  of  the  reasoned  purpose 
of  individuals.  And  it  should  be  noted  pre- 
liminarily that  any  war  becomes  straightway  a 
"people's  war"  if  it  becomes  big  enough  and  near 
enough  to  cause  the  people  to  believe,  or  to  be 
persuaded,  that  the  native  land  is  threatened. 
Then  they  will  rally  to  self-defense,  inspired  by 
feelings  of  patriotism,  and  can  readily  be  shown, 
among  other  things,  that  a  strong  offensive  is  the 
best  defense. 

27 


28  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  any  group  of 
men  in  power,  or  even  any  one  man,  can  at  any 
time  precipitate  a  war,  and  a  popular  one,  by 
stirring  up  a  hornet's  nest  and  then  falling  back 
upon  the  people.  Doubtless  this  has  been  done ; 
Bismarck  was  an  adept  at  this  sort  of  maneuver. 
But  the  question  immediately  rises  as  to  why 
leaders  of  this  ilk  are  in  power,  and  why  they 
are  kept  in  power.  Their  type  does,  or  does  not, 
represent  the  national  will.  If  it  does — if  Germans 
are  sure  to  be  represented  by  this  type  of  trouble- 
hunter  —  then  the  society  must  assume  responsi- 
bility, the  eminent  individual  dropping  out  except 
as  an  agent  of  the  popular  will.  If  it  does  not, 
then  the  inference  is  that  this  nation  cannot  or 
will  not  make  its  will  felt  as  against  its  rulers, 
either  because  it  has  no  will  or  because  extraor- 
dinary obstacles  interpose  to  thwart  expression : 
the  people  are  pathetically  uninformed,  perhaps, 
or  misinformed,  or  hopelessly  prepossessed,  or  so 
docile  and  suggestible  as  to  deserve  the  epithet 
"political  imbecile."  There  is  some  evidence  to 
support  any  one  of  these  hypotheses ;  a  later 
chapter  will  be  devoted  to  the  special  form  of 
obsession  to  which  the  German  people  seem  pecul- 
iarly susceptible. 

It   is    a   matter   of   comparatively   small   con- 


A  PEOPLE'S  WAR  29 

sequence,  seen  in  long  perspective,  that  war 
eventuated  in  one  year  rather  than  another,  or 
under  one  Emperor  rather  than  another;  the 
disharmony  was  sure  to  come  to  a  head  sooner  or 
later,  for  it  is  a  case  of  incompatibility  between 
societal  systems,  each  represented  by  the  sort  of 
spokesmen  characteristic  of  it.  The  war  came 
about  as  the  result  of  the  action  of  impersonal, 
automatically  operative  social  forces  on  the  order 
of  the  impersonal,  automatically  acting  natural 
forces ;  the  antics  of  a  ruler  giddy  with  self- 
importance  could  have  been  played  only  on  a 
stage  set  for  him.  The  sun  was  coming  up  any- 
how, whether  Chanticleer  crowed  or  not. 

Doubtless  the  despot  of  an  unresisting,  inartic- 
ulate sheep-people  or  Viehvolk  could  render  a 
striking  exhibition  of  purposeful  action  by  the 
individual  as  the  moving  force  in  societal  evolu- 
tion. But  this  is  hardly  the  sort  of  evidence  to 
thrill  the  soul  of  the  theorist  whose  pet  views 
it  seems  to  support ;  it  looks  atavistic  or  deca- 
dent. No  one  could  contemplate,  with  proprie- 
tary pride,  as  grist  available  for  his  theory-mill, 
the  spectacle  of  millions  being  led  about  by  the 
national  nose,  even  when  that  organ  is  clutched 
between  the  knuckles  of  no  less  a  personage  than 
the  high  priest  of  Odinism.     There  have  been  too 


30  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

few  cases  of  the  sort  in  the  present  or  the  past  to 
justify  the  conviction  that  such  an  one  is  normal, 
not  pathological,  if  indeed  it  exists  at  all.  And  the 
German  case  is  not  yet  closed ;  if  there  has  been 
an  incredible  success  in  keeping  a  whole  people 
uninformed,  or  misinformed,  or  under  illusion,  the 
misled  may  yet  encounter  a  situation  full  of  pain 
and  disillusion  that  is  calculated  to  spoil  the  com- 
pleteness and  perfection  of  the  case  for  autocracy. 
The  Kaiser  may  come  to  point  the  old  Greek 
saying :  Call  no  man  happy  till  he  is  dead. 
It  is  a  pretty  far-gone  imbecile  that  will  not  lash 
out  if  there  is  sufficient  stimulus. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  German  people  ac- 
quiesce in,  where  they  do  not  heartily  support, 
the  programs  of  their  (.rulers.  If  they  did  not, 
these  programs  could  not  be  realized  or  even 
formulated.  However  the  national  sentiment  is 
formed  or  guided,  the  lords  of  affairs  are  power- 
less except  as  they  are  tolerated  or  supported  by 
it.  The  purposeful  action  of  the  individual, 
however  exalted  he  may  be,  is  no  more  than  a 
variation  on  the  theme  set  by  the  public  opinion 
of  the  society.  Even  assuming  that  the  Kaiser 
precipitated  the  present  war  in  order  to  harmo- 
nize elements  with  which  he  had  been  having  diffi- 
culty,   and   to   justify   the   burdensome   increase 


i 


A  PEOPLE'S   WAR  31 

of  armament,  he  could  not  have  done  this  in  an- 
other society.  If  the  Kaiser  and  his  circle  could, 
by  some  miracle,  be  transferred  into  the  execu- 
tive offices  at  Washington,  they  would  be  power- 
less to  make  programs  and  create  situations 
fraught  with  gratuitous  menace  to  other  peoples. 
And  they  would  not  hold  office  long.  It  is  foolish 
to  lay  all  this  world-coil  to  individuals.  To  do 
so  is  to  deal  in  mythology  and  adhere  to  magic. 
It  is  like  believing  that  old  women  produce 
tempests  by  pulling  off  their  stockings. 

For  there  has  never  been  a  despot  so  securely 
settled  on  the  throne  and  surrounded  by  so  power- 
ful an  entourage,  that  he  could  not  be  shaken 
down  by  the  popular  will  if  he  crossed  it  often 
or  flagrantly  enough.  In  the  modern  world  most 
kings  are  mere  figure-heads,  and,  like  Edward 
VII,  attain  to  personal  influence  and  power  only 
when  they  are  popular.  The  old  method  of 
unseating  the  unpopular  ruler,  by  revolution, 
is  present  even  in  our  own  day ;  but  elections 
and  other  forms  of  "peaceful  revolution"  have 
also  been  devised  to  keep  the  real  rulers  — 
prime  ministers  and  presidents  —  under  regular 
control  by  the  popular  will.  The  whole  course 
of  society's  evolution  has  been  marked  by  in- 
creasingly efficient  adjustments  permitting  of  the 


32  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

more  unrestricted  expression  of  that  will.  If  the 
German  people  are  in  a  position  of  impotence 
in  this  matter,  the  case  is  an  exception  that  must 
have  some  special  and  vagrant  course  of  develop- 
ment behind  it.  It  is  in  accord  with  what  we 
know  of  the  operation  of  societal  evolution, 
throughout  human  history,  to  believe,  in  the 
absence  of  conclusive  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
that  Germany's  rulers  are  expressing  German 
public  opinion,  either  present  or  recent,  and 
that  if  they  were  not  there  to  voice  it,  other 
channels  of  outlet  would  have  been  opened. 

I  say  that  acquaintance  with  the  operation  of 
societal  evolution  leads  to  this  conclusion.  I 
might  have  said  that  plain  common  sense  points 
to  such  a  conviction.  But  there  are  many  things 
that  are  said  to  "stand  to  reason"  which  will  not 
stand  to  scientific  examination ;  in  fact,  the 
phrase  "it  stands  to  reason"  is  often  employed 
as  a  sort  of  camouflage  to  conceal  some  "intui- 
tion" or  some  belief  that  is  harbored  merely 
because  we  want  to  believe  it.  Here  is  a  place 
for  the  application  of  "trained  and  organized 
common  sense,"  which  was  Huxley's  definition 
of  science.  I  shall  now  try  to  indicate  the  con- 
ception of  societal  evolution  that  goes  with  the 
belief   in   the   predominance   of   the   impersonal. 


I 


A  PEOPLE'S  WAR  33 

spontaneous,  and  automatic  in  the  life  of  society, 
and  to  "place"  in  this  evolutionary  process  the 
vast  episode  now  being  enacted  with  the  whole 
world  as  a  stage. 

From  now  on  we  shall  confine  attention,  to  the 
virtual  disregard  of  the  individual  and  his  quali- 
ties and  powers,  upon  societies.  We  have  taken 
some  little  account  of  the  trees,  and  now  propose, 
without  denying  their  indispensability  as  com- 
ponents, to  view  the  woods.  We  shall  deal  in 
terms  of  a  wider  intention.  For  if,  extending 
the  perspective,  we  look  over  and  beyond  the 
individual,  we  see  in  this  world-conflict  the  align- 
ment and  confrontation  of  great  societies  — 
somewhat  as  Homer  saw  the  vast  forms  of  the 
higher  powers  seated  unmoved  above  the  fight- 
ing and  dying  mortals,  or  going  about  their  pro- 
digious affairs,  or  engaging  in  immortal  combat. 
The  movements  of  these  societies,  so  viewed, 
are  impersonal  and  automatic  after  the  manner 
of  gravitation  or  osmosis,  and  the  individual  is 
lost  to  sight,  or,  rather,  to  identification,  as  he 
blends  into  the  composite  mass.  It  is  from  such 
a  plane  that  we  shall  now  view  the  conflict. 
Thus  seen,  it  appears  as  a  powerful  selective 
factor  in  the  evolution,  not  alone  of  the  several 
nations,   but   of   human   society   itself.     Here   is 


34  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

a  vast  laboratory  of  selection  of  the  superorganic 
order  —  the  greatest  laboratory  the  social  scien- 
tist has  ever  seen  or  heard  of ;  for  what  is  going 
on  before  his  face  is  the  most  gigantic  exhibition 
of  that  type  of  selection  that  the  world  has  ever 
experienced.  Now  is  his  chance  to  get  glimpses 
of  the  mass-motions  that  form  the  driving  ener- 
gies of  the  tremendous  process. 

A  view  of  such  matters  in  the  large  cannot  be 
gained,  however,  without  first  giving  some  thought 
to  the  factors  and  processes  of  societal  evolution 
in  general.  These  should  be  capable,  for  the 
most  part,  of  simple  and  untechnical  descrip- 
tion. In  any  case  the  next  item  in  my  program 
is  to  attempt  such  an  exposition.^ 

1  For  a  condensed  statement  of  the  author's  views,  of  a  more 
technical  order  and  wider  scope,  see  Keller,  "  Societal  Evolution." 


I 


V.     FOLKWAYS   AND   SOCIETAL   CODES 
OF   CONDUCT 

The  central  figure  in  societal  evolution  is,  as 
we  shall  view  it,  a  human  society.  This  is  a 
group  of  human  beings  living  in  a  cooperative 
effort  to  win  subsistence  and  to  perpetuate  the 
species.  Such  a  definition  proposes  for  society 
the  same  functions  that  are  familiar  throughout 
the  organic  world :  self -maintenance  and  self- 
perpetuation.  The  latter  of  these  functions  is 
a  sort  of  extension,  in  time,  of  the  former ;  society, 
like  an  animal  species,  could  exist  awhile  —  for 
a  generation  —  without  it.  But  self -maintenance 
is  fundamental  and  primordial ;  it  had  to  begin 
at  once,  and  if  there  is  going  to  be  any  species  or 
society  at  all,  it  can  never  stop.  In  order  not  to 
complicate  matters,  let  us  fix  attention,  at  least 
for  the  moment,  upon  this  basic  matter  of  society's 
self-maintenance. 

Self-maintenance  means  primarily  and  uni- 
versally the  food-quest ;  but  it  involves  also, 
for  most  men,  the  provision  for  protection  against 

35 


36  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

the  natural  environment :  clothing  and  other 
shelter.  This  item  of  protection,  when  secured, 
represents  success  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
as  pursued  against  the  inanimate  part  of  the 
environment;  and  so  there  is  another  aspect  of 
that  struggle,  when  it  is  carried  on  against  the 
animate  part,  namely,  the  competition  of  life. 
This  is  a  contest  against  plant,  animal,  and  fellow- 
man  to  attain  or  to  retain  that  which  makes 
existence  possible,  or  to  preserve  life  itself.  Two 
main  phases  of  the  struggle  thus  reveal  them- 
selves, namely,  industry  and  war  for  plunder. 
In  the  former  the  means  of  living  are  derived 
from  the  inanimate  or  animate  environment  — 
by  hunting  and,  later  on,  by  herding  and  agricul- 
ture ;  in  the  latter,  by  the  appropriation  of  the 
product  of  the  industry  of  others,  or  aggression. 
Always  industry  is  the  basic  maintenance  ac- 
tivity. 

But  the  development  of  activities  in  self-main- 
tenance is  not  a  haphazard,  discontinuous  pro- 
cess. When  the  first  societies  of  which  we  know 
appear  to  view,  they  are  already  provided  with 
a  set  of  ways,  or  a  traditional  procedure,  by  which 
they  carry  on  this  activity,  and  every  other  of 
their  activities  as  well.  These  ways  represent 
a  concurrence  of  group-members  in  the  practice 


FOLKWAYS  AND  SOCIETAL  CODES  37 

of  expedients  which  have  been  proved  to  them, 
in  the  event,  to  be  successful  ones.  These  ex- 
pedient ways  have  been  called  the  folkways  or 
mores.  Language  is  one  of  the  most  typical 
of  the  mores ;  division  of  labor  is  another.  No 
one  planned  them,  but  they  grew  up  and  are 
practiced  unquestioningly,  unconsciously,  and 
automatically.  They  correspond  to  habits  in 
the  individual.  Taken  all  together,  they  con- 
stitute the  code  of  behavior  of  the  society.  They 
represent  the  proper  way  to  act,  and,  although 
they  are  not  subjected  to  any  rational  or  critical 
examination,  there  exists  the  conviction  that 
they  are  the  only  right  ways,  the  only  ones  fit 
to  live  by.  The  mores,  says  Sumner,^  who  first 
analyzed  them,  "are  the  popular  habitudes  and 
traditions,  when  they  contain  a  judgment  that 
they  are  conducive  to  societal  welfare,  and  when 
they  exert  a  coercion  upon  the  individual  to 
conform  to  them,  although  they  are  not  coordi- 
nated by  any  authority."  It  is  just  as  well  to 
have  a  technical  term  for  them,  for  they  are  not 
precisely  customs,  or  social  habitudes,  or  ethics, 
or  morals. 

They  become  uniform  and  universal  in  a  group, 

1  In  "Folkways,  A  Study  of  the  Sociological  Importance  of  Usages, 
Manners,  Customs,  Mores,  and  Morals." 


38  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

and  also  imperative  ;  and,  often  over  long  periods, 
they  are  invariable.  Many  of  them  are  strongly 
sanctioned  by  religion ;  in  fact,  practically  all 
of  them  that  are  of  long  standing  are  supported 
by  the  readiness  of  the  spirits,  ancestral  or  other, 
to  punish  infringement  or  alteration.  They  thus 
come  to  form  a  prescribed  body  of  rules  of  be- 
havior for  life  in  society  that  well  deserves  the 
title  of  "the  social  code." 

I  have  already  intimated  that  the  mores  extend 
beyond  the  range  of  self-maintenance.  Within 
that  range  they  determine  how  the  struggle  for 
existence  and  the  competition  of  life  shall  go  on, 
thus  rising  to  meet  and  cope  with  certain  vital 
and  perennial  life-conditions.  Another  inescap- 
able and  vital  life-condition  is  laid  down  in  the 
bisexuality  of  the  human  race;  there  are  the 
relations  of  the  sexes  to  be  ordered,  in  the  interest 
of  the  society's  well-being.  Innumerable  mores 
attend  to  the  relations  of  man  and  woman, 
parents  and  children,  and  they  work  out  into 
various  forms  of  marriage  and  the  family.  A 
big  group  of  mores  always  surrounds  some  vital 
condition  of  society  life,  like  that  of  sex,  and 
forms  the  approved  method  of  dealing  with  it. 
Another  such  condition,  for  further  example, 
was  felt  in  the  vividly  conceived  presence  of  a 


FOLKWAYS  AND  SOCIETAL  CODES  39 

world  of  ghosts  and  spirits,  an  imaginary  envi- 
ronment to  which  men  adjusted  themselves  by 
the  unplanned  development  of  a  set  of  mores 
covering  forms  of  avoidance,  exorcism,  concilia- 
tion, and  propitiation. 

But  these  several  sets  of  mores,  "mere  custom" 
at  first,  gradually  attained  a  stage  of  organiza- 
tion where  they  became  institutions,  as,  for 
example,  matrimony  and  religion.  There  is  no 
human  institution  that  has  not  risen  from  the 
matrix  of  custom,  and  the  rise  of  new  institutions, 
now  as  always,  is  out  of  the  same  prolific  source. 
And,  as  they  take  more  definite  form  and  some- 
what disengage  themselves  from  the  mass  of 
custom,  the  institutions  do  not  lose,  but  carry 
with  them,  that  approval  and  that  conviction 
as  to  their  indispensability  for  welfare  that  were 
accorded  to  the  mores.  Anything  that  is  in  our 
mores  is  right,  and  so  our  institutions  are  the  best. 
"The  mores,"  says  Sumner  again,  "can  make 
anything  right  and  prevent  condemnation  of 
anything."  They  are  the  approved  ways  of 
meeting  the  conditions  of  living,  developed, 
accepted,  and  practiced  without  the  intervention 
of  reasoned  purpose. 

They  are  to  a  society  what,  for  example, 
density  and  color  of  fur  are  to  arctic  animals ; 


40  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

namely  automatic  adaptations  to  environment. 
Life-conditions  are  present  and  society  has  to 
live  under  them.  This  is  rendered  possible,  or 
easy,  or  easier,  by  adjustments  in  the  manner  of 
life  or  ways  of  living.  Thus  we  have  a  societal 
code  characteristic,  for  instance,  of  the  arctics 
or  of  the  tropics,  of  isolation  or  accessibility, 
of  over-population  or  under-population,  of  the 
country  or  of  the  city,  of  peace  or  of  war. 

Adaptation  is  the  characteristic  result  of 
the  process  of  organic  evolution.  It  is  also, 
though  this  is  less  commonly  recognized,  that  of 
the  process  of  societal  evolution.  It  is  never 
perfect ;  and,  since  life-conditions  are  always 
changing,  it  is  never  stable.  Maladjustment 
recurs,  to  be  followed  by  new  adjustment  by 
way  of  altered  mores  and  institutions.  This  re- 
curring adjustment  is  secured,  in  nature,  through 
the  operation  of  three  factors  :  variation,  selec- 
tion, and  heredity,  all  of  which  act,  of  course, 
automatically.  By  variation,  diversity  is  secured 
—  the  members  of  the  new  generation  are  not 
precisely  like  those  of  the  old,  nor  are  they  all 
duplicates  of  one  another.  By  heredity,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  general  likeness  is  retained  as 
between  parents  and  offspring,  and  as  among  the 
several  offspring.     Heredity  is  the  conservative 


FOLKWAYS  AND  SOCIETAL  CODES  41 

element.  By  selection  the  least  adapted  of  any 
generation  are  weeded  out,  leaving  the  best 
adapted  to  survive.     These  latter  are  the  ' '  fittest . ' ' 

A  similar  process,  arriving  at  the  same  result, 
namely,  adjustment  to  life-conditions,  takes  place 
in  the  life  of  society.  Variation  produces  di- 
versity in  the  mores  and  in  the  institutions  crys- 
tallizing out  of  them ;  tradition,  corresponding 
to  heredity  in  the  organic  world,  holds  the  type 
of  the  mores,  as  they  are  passed  along;  and 
selection  weeds  out  the  less  expedient  mores  and 
institutions.  The  evolutionary  process  is,  how- 
ever, on  another  plane  than  that  of  organic 
evolution,  and  in  a  different  mode.  Its  exist- 
ence has  been  long  recognized  in  an  unconscious 
sort  of  way ;  for  writers  on  society's  life  have 
frequently  spoken  of  "social  heredity"  or  "social 
selection,"  just  as  generations  of  naturalists 
before  Darwin  spoke  of  "families"  of  plants  or 
animals  —  not  realizing  that  such  terms  were 
more  than  metaphorical,  or  better  than  anal- 
ogies. To  make  use  of  the  point  of  view  here 
taken,  it  is  necessary  to  be  resolved  as  to  the 
nature  of  variation,  selection,  and  transmission 
as  factors   in   societal   evolution. 

Variation  in  the  mores  represents  a  series  of 
tentatives,  departing  more  or  less  from  the  ac- 


42  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

cepted  code,  that  are  struck  out  upon  by  individ- 
uals in  the  pursuit  of  their  interests.  The  in- 
dividual's function  is  that  of  an  agency  for 
variation.  These  slight  departures  from  the 
code  are  in  evidence  all  the  time ;  in  fact,  the 
society's  code  is  a  sort  of  average  or  mean  or  type, 
about  which  cluster  the  codes  of  classes,  sects, 
and  other  larger  and  smaller  sub-groups.  The 
individual  may  adhere  to  a  number  of  these 
sub-groups,  as  his  interests  dictate.  He  may  be- 
long, for  instance,  to  the  carpenters'  union,  the 
Baptist  church,  the  Socialist  party,  the  Masonic 
lodge,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  When  interests 
change,  other  and  new  codes  may  appear,  some 
of  them  departing  widely  in  character,  perhaps, 
from  the  general  or  typical  code  of  the  society 
at  large.  In  general,  the  rise  of  such  variations 
is  a  consequence  of  discomfort  under  the  pre- 
vailing code ;  interests  strain  toward  a  better 
realization  by  way  of  change,  small  or  great. 

Such  variations  may  be  short-lived  and  ex- 
hibited by  only  a  few,  or  there  may  be  a  con- 
currence of  many  which  carries  them  forward 
until,  perhaps,  the  code  of  the  society  at  large 
has  been  profoundly  modified.  Some  of  the  vari- 
ations live  and  some  die  out.  Here  is  the  fact 
of    selection.     All    through    history,    codes    and 


FOLKWAYS  AND  SOCIETAL  CODES  43 

institutions  have  appeared,  have  persisted  for 
a  time,  and  have  been  altered  or  have  passed 
completely  away.  Since  the  topic  of  selection, 
and  in  particular  selection  by  war,  is  the  main 
interest  in  this  present  discussion,  I  should  prefer 
for  the  moment  merely  to  record  the  fact  of  selec- 
tion, leaving  the  consideration  of  the  process  for 
special  examination. 

Transmission  of  the  mores  is  by  tradition  — 
which,  I  repeat,  corresponds,  in  the  societal 
realm,  to  heredity  in  the  organic.  Tradition, 
like  heredity,  tends  to  repeat  the  type.  It  is 
brought  about  through  imitation,  either  spon- 
taneous or  induced.  Spontaneous  imitation  is 
a  natural  activity,  common  to  animals  and  man, 
and  especially  marked,  among  human  beings, 
in  the  young.  The  receiver  of  the  mores,  thus 
transmitted,  wants  to  receive,  and  takes  the 
initiative  in  the  transfer,  as  when  the  small 
boy  apes  his  father.  But  imitation  is  also  capable 
of  being  induced,  where  there  is  no  likelihood 
that  it  will  be  spontaneous,  by  precept  and  dis- 
cipline. This  is  education,  in  its  broadest  sense. 
The  receiver  may  be  indifferent  or  even  unwilling 
to  receive,  and  the  giver  commonly  takes  the 
initiative,  as,  for  example,  in  the  "uplifting"  of 
a  "lower"  race.     Also,  while  spontaneous  imita- 


44  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

tion  carries  all  the  mores  indiscriminately,  edu- 
cation carries  a  more  or  less  wisely  selected  body 
of  mores.  It  is  clear  that  the  former  is  the  more 
natural,  elemental,  impersonal,  spontaneous,  and 
automatic  process ;  the  latter  is  effective  as  it 
succeeds  in  reproducing  the  essentials,  at  least  in 
appearance,  of  the  former,  but  in  comparison  it 
appears  artificial.  It  involves,  it  has  been  noted, 
an  antecedent  choice  or  selection  from  the  main 
body  of  the  mores :  we  will  teach  the  young 
certain  things  and  others  we  will  try  to  keep  from 
them  as  long  as  possible.  This  choice  is  supposed 
to  be  a  reasoned  and  purposeful  one ;  but  such  a 
selection  has  little  of  the  sureness  and  severe 
correctness  of  an  automatic  selection. 

These  evolutionary  factors  are  operative  in 
the  life  of  every  society,  from  the  family  group 
to  the  nation.  And  they  do  not  stop  there. 
They  are  effective,  on  the  grand  scale,  in  the  life 
of  Human  Society  as  a  whole.  There  is  a  world- 
code  that  has  been  in  the  process  of  formation 
with  the  establishment  of  proximity  between  the 
nations ;  for  that  proximity,  brought  about  by 
the  "annihilation  of  distance,"  has  meant  altered 
conditions  of  life  for  many  societies ;  and  varia- 
tions that  have  been  demonstrated,  under  selec- 
tion,   to    be    expedient,    have    been    transmitted 


I 


FOLKWAYS  AND   SOCIETAL  CODES  45 

until  enough  mores  have  come  to  be  held  in 
common  by  all,  or  nearly  all,  to  justify  the  term 
"international  code"  or  "world-code."  Varia- 
tions around  this  code,  or  in  departure  from  it, 
may  now  be  originated  by  a  whole  nation,  and 
submitted  for  world-wide  acceptance  or  rejec- 
tion. Slavery,  for  example,  has  been  rejected, 
while  democracy  has  widened  its  range.  And 
of  late  stands  forth  Germany,  as  champion  of 
a  code  that  is  even  now  undergoing  the  ordeal 
of  selection.  These  national  variations  on  the 
world-code  cannot  be  tested  up  as  soon  as,  or 
shortly  after  they  appear  —  as  Mormonism  was 
tested  up  on  the  American  national  code  —  and 
the  process  of  selection  is  the  more  imposing 
when  it  comes.  We  turn  now  to  a  survey  of  the 
essentials  of  the  selective  process. 


VI.  CONFLICT  AN  ESSENTIAL  TO  SELEC- 
TION:  PEACEFUL  COMPETITION 

The  idea  of  the  variation  and  transmission  of 
a  societal  code  is  readily  grasped,  though  it  should 
not  be  thought  that  these  factors  work  out  in  a 
simple  and  obvious  manner.  But  there  is  more 
difficulty  with  selection.  The  term  itself  causes 
some  trouble,  for  there  is  about  it  a  connotation  of 
choosing  which  darkens  counsel.  In  organic 
evolution  there  cannot  be,  of  course,  any  ques- 
tion of  choice ;  the  results  of  natural  selection 
are  attained  by  elimination  of  the  maladapted, 
not  by  any  positive  process.  The  "fit"  are  those 
that  are  left  after  the  rest  have  been  disposed  of. 
The  whole  process  is  impersonal  and  automatic, 
in  its  entirety.  Similarly  with  the  most  im- 
portant manifestations  of  societal  selection,  if 
not  with  them  all.  In  any  case,  it  is  necessary 
to  start  out  with  the  idea  of  selection  by  way  of 
elimination  rather  than  with  the  misleading 
positive  conception  of  selection  as  picking  and 
choosing.     Variations    around    the    code    appear 

46 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  47 

and  come  to  the  test.  Those  that  cannot  qualify 
as  expedient  adjustments  tend  to  pass  away, 
and  the  rest  remain  because  nothing  is  done  to 
them.  The  "fit"  variations  in  the  mores,  like 
the  fit  organisms,  are  let  alone  to  run  their  course. 
Thus  the  term  "  selection,"  as  used  in  evolutionary 
systems,  has  a  special  sense  and  must  be  so  under- 
stood. 

Essential  to  the  operation  of  selection  is  con- 
flict. Conflict  involves  competition,  and  with- 
out it  there  is  no  test.  Thus  natural  selection 
could  not  take  place  were  it  not  for  the  struggle 
for  existence  out  of  which  the  better  adapted 
forms  emerge  as  the  rest  perish.  Highly  devel- 
oped specimens  of  organic  life  do  not  appear 
under  isolation,  but  under  conditions  of  com- 
petition —  not  in  Australia,  for  example,  but 
in  Asia.  This  situation  is  duplicated  in  the 
societal  realm,  for  no  isolated  people  ever  de- 
veloped an  advanced  code,  that  is,  a  high  civili- 
zation. Compare  Mesopotamian  culture,  for 
instance,  with  that  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  But 
where  numbers  of  human  beings  come  into  con- 
tact, a  competitive  conflict  is  bound  to  occur; 
for  all  are  trying  to  satisfy  wants,  and  the  satis- 
factions are  too  few  to  go  round.  Also  it  is 
characteristic  of  wants  that  they  increase  with  the 


48  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

satisfaction  of  them ;  if  at  one  instant  of  time  all 
human  wants  were  satisfied,  the  next  instant 
would  reveal  many  more  emerging,  that  could 
not  be  met.  So  that,  in  the  pursuit  of  their 
interests,  both  individuals  and  societies  are  sure 
to  fall  into  conflict.  It  is  this  conflict  that 
brings  codes  of  conduct  and  policies  of  living  to  a 
test  and  a  selection. 

But  the  mores  and  codes  cannot  fight  one 
another.  If  we  speak  of  the  conflict  of  mili- 
tarism and  industrialism,  we  are  using  a  figure 
of  speech.  The  conflict  is  not  between  codes  or 
institutions,  but  between  the  societies  adhering 
to  them.  If  the  battle  goes  to  the  bearers  of  a 
certain  code,  that  code  is  extended  and  strength- 
ened in  influence ;  if  against  them,  it  is  weakened 
and  may  be  eliminated  altogether.  It  is  the 
issue  of  the  conflict  that  is  decisive. 

The  conflict  is  of  various  types :  military, 
industrial,  commercial,  political ;  but  it  is  always 
a  struggle  to  realize  interests.  What  is  wanted 
is  the  power  to  get  rights  to  something,  such  as 
the  franchise,  a  "place  in  the  sun,"  and  so  on. 
We  have  a  right  to  a  thing  when  the  rest  will 
hold  off  and  let  us  have  it;  but  they  will  not 
hold  off  unless  they  are  under  some  compulsion 
to   do    so.     The   power  —  military,    civil,    moral, 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  49 

or  other  —  established  as  the  result  of  struggle, 
is  that  compulsion.  What  people  want  above  all, 
barring  only  existence  itself,  is  the  right  to  realize 
a  standard  of  living.  This  is  a  matter  of  detail- 
enterprise,  but  for  a  society  it  amounts  to  a  slight 
or  a  considerable  idealization  upon  the  living 
its  members  are  used  to ;  it  comes  to  involve 
an  extension  of  the  local  code,  with  certain  re- 
finements upon  it.  But  such  an  objective  readily 
brings  two  classes  in  the  same  nation  or  two 
nations  into  conflict  over  their  codes,  for  in- 
stance over  autocracy  as  against  democracy. 
Thus  the  codes  themselves  furnish  a  casus  belli. 
They  are  the  more  likely  to  do  that  because,  in 
the  conviction  that  "our"  ways  are  the  only 
right  ones,  we  are  wont  to  regard  those  of  others 
as  ridiculous,  perverse,  altogether  wrong,  or  even 
contemptible.  This  sentiment  of  group-egotism 
is  called  ethnocentrism. 

It  is  plain,  without  going  for  the  present  into 
greater  detail,  that  there  are  always  occasions 
enough  for  conflict  between  societies.  Now  the 
crudest  form  of  such  conflict  is  common  to  both 
animals  and  men ;  it  is  by  physical  violence. 
This  form  is  the  one  specifically  before  us,  and 
must  be  looked  into  with  some  care;  I  should 
like  to  set  it  aside   with  that  purpose  in  view 


50  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

while  surveying  first  the  milder  forms  of  human 
conflict.  There  is  some  advantage  in  consider- 
ing the  more  evolved  forms  first,  when  we  are 
studying  a  case  of  recurrence  of  the  less  evolved. 
This  is,  in  effect,  putting  the  cart  before  the 
horse,  so  far  as  evolutionary  sequence  goes;  for 
all  other  types  of  competition  are,  at  least  among 
civilized  peoples,  modifications  of  an  antecedent 
violence.  They  have  been,  in  their  time,  varia- 
tions on  the  code  of  violent  conflict,  and  they 
have  been  subjected  to  selection.  The  fact  that 
they  have  survived  that  test  indicates  that  they 
are  more  expedient  as  adjustments  to  evolved 
life-conditions  of  societies  than  is  their  parent 
stock.  But  it  should  be  noted  that  no  evolu- 
tionary adjustments  are  permanent ;  their  per- 
sistence under  given  conditions  proves  nothing 
about  their  expediency  should  conditions  change 
—  change  back,  for  instance,  to  resemble  more 
primitive  ones.  For  while  softened  conditions 
can  be  met  by  gentler  expedients,  a  recurrence 
of  harsh  conditions  calls  for  a  return  to  rough 
and  crude  forms  of  adjustment. 

In  considering  the  milder  forms  of  conflict 
we  are  led  at  once  before  a  broad  adjustment 
which  is  a  pre-condition  to  their  development. 
This  is  the  "peace-group,"  otherwise  called  the 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  51 

"in-group"  or  the  "we-group."  A  peace-group 
is  composed  of  members  who  have  enough  in- 
terests in  common  to  allow  of  cooperation  rather 
than  conflict  in  their  realization.  They  have  a 
common  code  —  common,  that  is,  in  the  essen- 
tials ;  there  is  no  conflict  over  the  vital  things, 
for  they  are  assumed  in  the  common  code,  and 
disputes  over  minor  matters  can  be  carried  on, 
generally,  without  breach  of  the  peace  by  recourse 
to  violence.  "Men  will  always  fight,"  it  is 
said,  "when  they  are  mad  enough";  but  in  this 
case  the  matters  concerning  which  they  could  get 
mad  enough  are  agreed  upon  by  all  fellow-mem- 
bers, so  that  they  do  not  have  to  be  fought  about 
within  the  group ;  and  over  the  issues  of  less 
weight,  passion  does  not  run  so  high. 

No  one  ever  set  out  to  invent  a  peace-group. 
It  is  a  typically  spontaneous,  automatic,  and 
impersonal  development,  and  one  with  a  very 
high  survival  value ;  for  it  is  by  peace  and  order 
wilhin  that  a  society  is  enabled  to  resist  de- 
struction or  to  concentrate  its  strength  in  the 
pursuit  of  its  interests  against  competitors.  In 
fact,  the  very  definition  of  a  human  society,  as 
given  above,  implies  internal  peace  as  an  indis- 
pensable condition.  Thus  the  peace-group  may 
be  taken  to  be  as  old  as  humanity,   and  even 


52  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

older,  for  animals  form  true  societies.  But  it 
appears  in  history  as  a  modification  of  an  ante- 
cedent regime  of  violence.  What  we  actually 
see  in  history  is  a  progressive  development  of 
restriction  on  violence,  both  as  between  individ- 
uals and  classes  within  the  same  society,  and 
also  as  between  societies.  But  the  very  prohibi- 
tion of  violence  witnesses  to  the  priority  of 
violence.  The  general  tendency,  where  we  know 
war  to  have  been  the  mode,  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  milder  methods ;  there  is  no  general 
or  steady  tendency  in  the  opposite  direction ; 
and  so  the  conflict  by  violence  appears  to  be  a 
heritage  from  the  antique  world.  War  is  often 
spoken  of  as  a  reversion.  Nations,  even  when 
at  war,  take  pains  to  cast  the  odium  of  recourse 
to  such  a  savage  expedient  upon  the  enemy. 
Public  opinion  is  against  violence  and  in  favor 
of  peace  —  but  that  it  was  not  always  so,  can  be 
gathered  from  the  character  of  the  heroes  and 
divinities  of  olden  time.  Whether  or  not  the 
primordial  era  was  one  of  unmitigated  violence, 
the  extension  of  the  peace-group,  as  seen  in  his- 
tory, has  represented  a  progressive  modification 
of  the  ruder  methods  of  conflict. 

The  existence  of   a   peace-group   is   dependent 
upon  the  adherence  of  its  members  to  a  common 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  53 

societal  code ;  their  major  interests  coincide  and 
are  being  realized  under  the  adjustments  to  life- 
conditions  represented  by  the  code.  There  is 
a  conviction  that  group-welfare  depends  upon 
the  code,  and  there  arises  a  loyalty  to  it  and  a 
partisanship,  that  constitute  patriotism.  Such 
sentiments  create  cohesion  and  stability,  and 
have,  as  we  have  seen,  a  high  survival-value 
in  any  society's  life.  But  this  does  not  mean, 
we  have  already  insisted,  that  the  society's  code 
remains  forever  the  same.  It  is  only  the  vital 
or  salient  mores  that  are  held  in  common ;  out- 
side of  these  is  the  inevitable  variation,  due  to 
the  non-uniform  composition  of  the  society. 
For  every  society  or  nation,  however  stable  as 
a  peace-group,  includes  classes,  sects,  and  other 
constituents,  each  of  which  has,  as  its  truly  dis- 
tinguishing feature,  its  special  body  of  mores. 
The  most  essential  of  these  mores  receive  rep- 
resentation in  the  national  code ;  but  there 
are  minor  interests  enough  to  struggle  for,  in 
competition  with  other  sub-groups.  These  com- 
peting fellow-groups  are  also  divisible  into  still 
smaller  constituents,  with  still  more  special 
interests  and  still  more  specialized  rules  of  con- 
duct. There  is  endless  chance  for  conflict,  selec- 
tion, and  adjustment  within  the  peace-group.     It 


54  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

is  clear  that  as  the  different  local  bodies  unite  to 
form  the  larger  ones,  and  as  they  all  finally  join  to 
make  up  the  society  or  nation,  the  number  of  mores 
common  to  the  unions  must  become  ever  smaller 
and  their  form  more  general.  The  residue  to  which 
all  peacefully  adhere  are  the  few  and  general  es- 
sentials of  the  inclusive  code ;  the  conflict  is  about 
minor  matters  and  is  pursued  in  a  milder  way. 

I  do  not  wish  to  load  these  pages  with  abstrac- 
tions or  generalities  not  bearing  directly  upon 
my  main  topic,  nor  yet  with  needless  illustra- 
tion. The  milder  methods  of  social  conflict  do 
not  form  the  main  subject  of  this  writing,  and  are 
to  be  treated  only  as  they  throw  light  upon  war- 
selection.  However,  it  must  be  understood  that 
war-selection  comes  about,  in  these  days,  when 
the  milder  methods  break  down ;  and  it  is  there- 
fore necessary  to  summon  up  a  quite  clear  and 
definite  impression  of  how  the  milder  methods 
have  been  evolved  and  what  they  can  and  can- 
not do,  in  order  to  see  where  war  comes  in. 

Perhaps  the  generalities  of  a  code  upon  which  a 
whole  nation  agrees,  as  distinguished  from  de- 
tails of  lesser  importance,  may  be  best  brought 
out  by   a  quotation  ^  —  in  which  the  emphasis 

^Sumner,  W.  G.,  "The  Challenge  of  Facts  and  Other  Essays," 
pp.  353-354. 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  55 

upon  the  impersonal  and  automatic  in  the  forma- 
tion and  acceptance  of  a  national  code  should 
be  noted.  "The  rights  of  conscience,  the  equality 
of  all  men  before  the  law,  the  separation  of  church 
and  state,  religious  toleration,  freedom  of  speech 
and  of  the  press,  popular  education,  are  vital 
traditions  of  the  American  people.  They  are  not 
brought  in  question ;  they  form  the  stock  of 
firm  and  universal  convictions  on  which  our 
national  life  is  based ;  they  are  ingrained  into  the 
character  of  our  people,  and  you  can  assume, 
in  any  controversy,  that  an  American  will  admit 
their  truth.  But  they  form  the  sum  of  traditions 
which  we  obtain  as  our  birthright.  They  are 
never  explicitly  taught  to  us,  but  we  assimilate 
them  in  our  earliest  childhood  from  all  our  sur- 
roundings, at  the  fireside,  at  school,  from  the 
press,  on  the  highways  and  streets.  We  never 
hear  them  disputed  and  it  is  only  when  we  ob- 
serve how  difficult  it  is  for  some  foreign  nations 
to  learn  them  that  we  perceive  that  they  are  not 
implanted  by  nature  in  the  human  mind.  They 
are  a  part  and  the  most  valuable  part  of  our  na- 
tional inheritance,  and  the  obligation  of  love, 
labor,  and  protection  which  we  owe  to  the  nation 
rests  upon  these  benefits  which  we  receive  from 


56  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

Agreeing  with  respect  to  these  generahties  — 
accepting  them,  in  fact,  without  reflection  —  Amer- 
icans experience  in  the  rest  of  the  national  Hfe 
a  series  of  colhsions  of  minor  interests  :  some  have 
wanted  protectionism,  others  free  trade ;  some 
an  imperiahstic  poHcy,  others  the  traditional 
policy  of  isolation.  A  long  series  of  interests, 
lined  up  for  the  fray,  could  be  mentioned :  labor 
vs.  capital,  debtors  vs.  creditors,  gold-standardists 
vs.  inflationists,  suffragists  vs.  anti-suffragists, 
"wets"  vs.  "drys";  and,  on  the  smaller  scale, 
religious  sects,  secret  societies,  and  local  organi- 
zations of  all  descriptions  maintain  an  unremit- 
ting competition  among  themselves.  Viewed  from 
this  angle,  national  life  is  a  seething  arena  of 
conflict,  industrial,  commercial,  political,  reli- 
gious, moral,  full  of  petty  or  more  than  petty 
triumphs  and  reverses,  entailing  extensions  and 
eliminations  of  petty  or  more  than  petty  codes 
of  behavior. 

It  remains  to  note  that  each  smaller  group  is 
trying  all  the  time  to  universalize  its  pet  program, 
and  that  there  is  always  the  possibility  that  it 
may  acquire  a  following  sufficient  to  raise  its 
code  into  a  prominence  from  which  it  can  chal- 
lenge some  of  the  essentials  of  the  national  code. 
If,  then,  there  comes  about  a  conflict  over  es- 


PEACEFUL  COMPETITION  57 

sentials,  there  is  in  prospect  a  selection  that  may 
demand  revohition,  probably  violence,  and  so  the 
suspension  or  even  the  destruction  of  the  peace- 
status  itself.  Slavery  in  the  South  was  for  a 
long  time  a  minor  national  issue ;  but  it  rose 
into  prominence,  got  in  among  the  essentials, 
so  that  the  nation  could  not  exist  half-slave  and 
half-free,  and  was  finally  eliminated  by  recourse 
to  war.  If  any  local  issue  works  up  into  such 
prominence,  it  transcends  peaceful  settlement. 
People  have  become,  with  the  successive  thwart- 
ing of  interests  believed  by  them  to  be  essential, 
angry  enough  to  fight ;  and  as  yet  there  is  no 
peaceful  device  that  has  stood  the  test  as  a 
substitute  for  violence.  Not  for  nothing  has  war 
been  called  the  ultima  ratio.  War  has  always 
been  and  is  now  the  last  expedient  in  bringing 
about  selection  in  the  mores,  and  any  other  form 
of  conflict  may  run  out  into  war. 


Vn.   PUBLIC   OPINION  AND   THE   NA- 
TIONAL CODE 

The  code  of  any  peace-group  must  contain,  of 
necessity,  taboos  on  violence,  and  also  upon  con- 
duct likely  to  lead  to  violence;  otherwise  the 
existence  of  the  group  would  always  be  in  jeopardy. 
"Thou  shalt  not  kill"  and  "thou  shalt  not  steal" 
are  such  taboos.  Any  member  who  transgresses 
these  formulations  of  adjustment  to  life-conditions 
is  removed  from  the  group  or  some  attempt  is 
made  to  force  him  into  harmony.  The  code  of 
any  peace-group  whatsoever  must  contain  these 
taboos  as  a  condition  of  being  a  peace-group ;  this 
has  been  tested  over  and  over  throughout  human 
history,  has  become  traditional,  and  is  never 
questioned.  Other  items  in  the  code  of  a  modern 
nation,  such  as  freedom  of  conscience,  are  of  much 
later  development,  having  been  acquired  within 
the  recent  historic  period.  No  variations  are 
permitted  that  may  tend  to  weaken  these  funda- 
mentals ;  in  fact,  every  variation  is  tested  on 
the  criterion  of  its  consistency  with  the  fimda- 

58 


PUBLIC  OPINION  59 

mentals.  Thus  is  many  a  proposed  law  declared 
unconstitutional,  that  is,  inconsistent  with  the 
national  principles,  or  the  genius  of  national  in- 
stitutions. 

But  where  the  fundamentals  of  the  code  are  not 
obviously  in  question,  a  flexible  and  adaptable 
societal  system  will  show  free  and  versatile  va- 
riation. Such  variability  has  a  high  selective 
value,  for  its  presence  means  a  heightened  chance 
of  securing,  through  multiplied  expedients,  a 
speedy  and  adequate  adjustment.  But  that  re- 
sult cannot  come  about  unless  unhampered  free- 
dom of  expression  is  accorded  to  the  producers  of 
any  new  expedient  for  living,  whereby  they  may 
seek  to  offer  it  for  imitation  and  concurrence, 
spontaneous  or  induced,  in  competition  with 
other  variations.  I  have  said  that  such  com- 
petition aims  at  power,  political  or  other;  but 
that  power  can  be  gained  only  by  winning  over 
public  opinion.  Now,  public  opinion  is  commonly 
supposed  to  be  responsive  to  reason,  and  people 
who  accept  that  supposition  are  led  to  lay  much 
stress  upon  reasoned  and  purposeful  individual 
initiative  as  a  moving  force  in  societal  evolution. 
If  such  a  position  is  sound,  then  society  practices 
a  rational  selection  among  its  mores,  and  there- 
fore a  rational  adjustment  to  its  life-conditions. 


60  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

It  is  necessary  to  reflect  upon  this  matter  before 
we  go  on. 

In  conceiving  of  public  opinion  we  are  all  in- 
clined to  think  of  it  as  the  opinion  of  our  own 
circle  of  life,  and  if  one's  circle  is  composed  chiefly 
of  educated  people,  as  is  generally  the  case  with 
any  theoretical  writer,  he  is  apt  to  assume  that 
public  opinion  includes  a  large  element  of  the  in- 
tellectual or  of  the  rationally  discriminative. 
But  genuine  public  opinion  cannot  be  anything 
else  than  the  consensus  of  the  whole  society ;  and 
the  vast  bulk  of  any  society  is  composed  of  so- 
called  "common  people,"  not  at  all  or  not  very 
well  educated,  of  horizons  much  limited,  and  with- 
out the  time,  surplus  energy,  or  even  capacity  to 
grapple  intellectually  with  broad  and  general 
issues.  This  is  no  indictment  of  those  who  form 
the  solid  strength  of  any  society ;  in  fact  there 
are  not  a  few  of  those  who  are  regarded  as  in- 
tellectuals because  of  eminence  in  certain  re- 
stricted fields,  who  are  both  artless  and  child-like 
when  they  set  out  to  pass  judgment  on  the  societal 
order.  The  scope  of  any  human  intellect  is 
circumscribed.  Few  men  can  deal  intelligently 
with  the  broadest  issues  of  societal  adjustment. 
There  is  no  immediate  test  or  verification  to  go  by, 
and  it  is  generally  only  after  the  issue  is  long  past 


PUBLIC  OPINION  61 

that  the  "verdict  of  history,"  the  only  sure  one, 
can  be  rendered. 

Public  opinion,  in  brief,  is  a  matter  of  feeling 
rather  than  of  intellect ;  and  the  feeling  is  de- 
veloped in  connection  with  a  more  or  less  localized 
interest.  If  such  interests  are  being  realized, 
public  opinion  is  favorable  to  or  acquiescent  in 
the  societal  order;  if  not,  there  is  "unrest"  and 
a  threat  of  conflict  to  secure  change.  Men  adjust 
consciously  only  to  what  they  can  see,  or  visual- 
ize, or  think  they  see.  This  may  be  thoroughly 
irrational,  as  with  the  primitive  people,  who  have 
a  whole  set  of  adjustments  to  a  world  of  ghosts 
and  demons  —  a  construction  that  can  withstand 
none  of  our  accepted  tests  of  reality. 

And  yet  it  is  possible  to  contend  that  public 
opinion  is  prevailingly  "right"  —  even  that  the 
vox  populi  is  the  vox  dei.  Public  opinion  sup- 
ported primitive  religions.  We  cannot  at  all 
agree  with  the  feeling  back  of  it.  But  the  re- 
ligions were  of  the  highest  societal  effectiveness, 
constituting  as  they  did,  among  other  things,  a 
powerful  disciplinary  factor  just  when  and  where 
discipline  was  most  needed.  They  had  a  high 
survival-value  and  public  sentiment  was  "right" 
in  supporting  them.  Society  automatically  used 
the  public  opinion,  intellectually  mistaken  as  it 


62  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

was,  with  the  result  of  securing  adaptation  to  con- 
ditions that  really  existed,  and  to  them  as  they 
existed.  Men  in  those  elder  ages  never  saw  the 
societal  expediency  of  their  religion ;  it  was  all 
the  time  being  put  to  uses  quite  other  than  those 
which  had  won  it  the  favor  of  the  public.  No 
matter  whence  or  how  they  arose,  or  how  they 
were  viewed  by  the  individual  mind,  the  religious 
institutions  represented  a  real  adjustment  to  life- 
conditions,  and  therefore  persisted,  surviving  all 
sorts  of  selective  tests  along  their  course. 

I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  enlightenment  has  not 
enabled  a  modern  society  to  proceed  more  in- 
telligently and  consciously  toward  its  destiny; 
but  any  one  who  faces  the  facts  will  have  to  con- 
clude that  intelligent  and  conscious  action  is 
still,  among  the  masses  of  mankind,  confined  for 
the  most  part  to  local  issues  and  even  to  personal 
exigencies.  The  wider  view  is  the  rare  view;  it 
is,  for  example,  the  view  of  the  statesman  as  con- 
trasted with  that  of  the  "practical  politician." 
Most  of  us  are  but  little  concerned  in  action  that 
contemplates  a  distant  or  universal  result;  few 
people  can  take  a  deep  intelligent  interest  in  a 
social  program,  like  that  of  eugenics,  which  aims 
at  an  improvement  of  the  whole  human  race  some 
centuries    hence.     The    human    tendency    is    to 


PUBLIC  OPINION  63 

shrink  such  a  program  down  to  a  proximate,  im- 
mediate aim ;  to  make  it  bear  on  the  present 
situation,  and  upon  the  local  interest  of  the  ad- 
herent. 

Certainly  the  adjustment  of  a  nation's  code,  let 
alone  that  of  a  race,  to  life-conditions  is  one  of 
those  matters  that  transcend  the  mental  outfit 
and  powers  of  most,  if  not  of  all  men.  How,  then, 
can  public  opinion  be  trusted  to  settle  such  an 
issue.'*  The  answer  is,  because  the  process  is 
typically  automatic  and  impersonal,  of  a  larger 
potency  than  any  intellect-directed  process  can  be, 
and  must  of  necessity  work  out  into  adjustment. 

Consider  the  adjustment  secured  by  natural 
selection,  which  is  so  apt  that  it  was  at  first  un- 
hesitatingly ascribed  to  infinite  intelligence,  and 
so  rational  in  its  outcome  that  the  best  brains  of 
mankind  have  been  employed  for  centuries  in 
simply  following  out  the  process  and  seeing  how 
it  was  done.  Science  has  limped  along  after 
natural  fact ;  after  the  act  it  has  offered,  at 
length,  its  rational  explanation ;  but  would  it 
trust  itself,  even  now,  to  vie  with  the  process 
which  it  has  followed  and  learned  ? 

What  science  has  learned  is  how  things  are  and 
how  they  go,  in  the  natural  order.  These  pro- 
cesses cannot  be  altered,  but  they  can  be  fallen  in 


64  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

with,  or  adjusted  to,  with  the  result  of  human  well- 
being.  There  is  here  no  negation  of  the  value  of 
human  knowledge  and  of  action  in  its  light.  And 
the  case  is  similar  in  the  societal  realm.  The 
process,  here  too,  is  "right"  as  the  natural  pro- 
cess is  "right"  because  it  is  of  the  same  impersonal, 
elemental  nature.  The  test  is,  in  one  case  as  in 
the  other,  the  magnificently  simple  and  con- 
clusive one  of  persistence  or  non-persistence. 
Our  business  is  to  learn  how  things  are  and  how 
they  go,  in  the  societal  order ;  these  processes, 
like  the  natural  ones,  cannot  be  altered,  but  we 
can  fall  in  with  them,  or  adjust  to  them,  with  the 
result  of  societal  well-being. 

Recurring  now  to  public  opinion,  which  comes 
near  to  being  the  elemental  force  in  societal  evo- 
lution, we  find  it  based  upon  sentiment  and  in- 
terest rather  than  upon  intellectual  analyses  of 
complicated  conditions.  Upon  interest  —  but 
here  is  precisely  the  touchstone  of  society's  ad- 
justments :  do  they  subserve  interests  or  do  they 
not?  Each  local  group,  while  incompetent  to 
survey  the  interests  of  the  whole  society,  is  clear 
enough  upon  its  own  immediate  status,  for  it  has 
to  live  from  day  to  day  in  that  status,  and  it 
knows  without  much  cerebration  whether  life  is 
comfortable  or  not.     It  is  the  only  agency  that 


PUBLIC  OPINION  65 

can  pass  upon  that  question ;  for  it  is  well-nigh 
impossible  for  a  member  of  one  group  to  see  the 
life  in  another  as  a  member  of  the  latter  sees  it. 
If  each  group  is  to  judge  of  its  own  interests,  the 
responsibility  lies  precisely  where  the  real  ex- 
perience is.  The  resulting  inferences  as  to  what 
ought  to  be  done  may  be  wrong ;  in  fact,  through 
the  suggestion  of  interested  parties  a  group  or 
class  may  be  persuaded  that  it  has  cause  for  dis- 
content when  none  would  be  felt  if  it  were  let  alone ; 
but  it  is  just  the  virtue  of  the  automatic  process 
that  under  it  such  unrealities  at  once  encounter, 
along  with  the  realities,  an  unplanned  test  by 
conflict.  If  there  is  anything  in  proposed  va- 
riations of  the  code,  it  will  come  out,  at  length ; 
if  there  are  only  phantasms,  they  will  be  dissipated 
under  the  test.  If  all  the  interests,  locally  felt 
and  locally  defended,  have  their  chance  within 
the  arena  marked  out  by  the  limits  set  in  the 
national  code,  the  composite  product  of  the  con- 
sequent selection,  neither  foreseen  nor  planned  by 
any  one,  will  represent  a  more  expedient  adjust- 
ment for  the  whole  society.  And  if  the  arena  is 
too  narrow,  or  the  restriction  too  cramping,  that 
too  will  take  care  of  itself ;  the  pressure  of  dis- 
contented groups  s  bound  to  increase  under 
repression  until  the  conflict  issues  in  a  revolu- 


66  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

tionary  modification  of  the  broader  outlines  of  the 
society's  code,  or  even  in  the  violent  disruption 
of  the  peace-group  itself.  Adjustment  to  life- 
conditions  is  a  necessity  of  life,  for  organism  or 
society.     It  is  bound  to  come. 

The  peace-group,  as  we  have  seen,  is  an  ex- 
pedient for  living  whose  efficacy  is  unquestioned 
by  any  one  except,  perhaps,  certain  crazy  anar- 
chists. But  its  adaptability,  through  freedom 
accorded  to  public  opinion,  has  been  a  matter  of 
growth.  At  an  early  period  in  the  world's  history 
it  was  not  in  the  mores  to  allow  of  the  free  ex- 
pression of  general  opinion.  *'Sit  down  thyself 
and  cause  the  rest  of  the  people  to  sit  down," 
suggests  Odysseus,  blandly,  to  the  excited  noble, 
"for  not  yet  dost  thou  clearly  know  what  is  the 
mind  of  the  son  of  Atreus"  ;  but  with  the  common 
man  he  uses  harsher  measures,  and  thunders : 
"Sit  still  and  harken  to  the  words  of  others  who 
are  your  betters  !  On  no  account  shall  all  the 
Achseans  be  king  here.  Not  good  is  the  rule  of 
many ;  one  is  to  be  leader,  one  king."  Yet  even 
in  Homer's  time,  and  in  war,  the  assembly  of  the 
people  could  make  itself  felt  by  peaceable  means, 
even  though  the  threat  of  violence  lay  not  far 
away. 

The  course  of  civilization  has  been  marked  by  a 


PUBLIC  OPINION  67 

progressive  enlargement  of  the  range  of  expression 
accorded  to  the  popular  will.  This  has  assured 
the  stability  of  peace-groups  to  a  higher  and  higher 
degree,  for  it  has  amounted  to  enlarged  oppor- 
tunity for  the  realization  of  interests  without 
resort  to  violence.  It  is  the  justification  for  a 
freedom  of  speech  almost  bordering  upon  license, 
that  popular  discontent  may  thus  blow  itself  off 
into  thin  air  and  do  no  such  damage  as  it  might 
if  confined.  Limitation  of  freedom  of  expression 
is  popular  only  when  the  group-code  and  the  senti- 
ment of  patriotism  supporting  it  are  endangered 
and  outraged. 

Formerly,  then,  there  was  little  apparatus  for 
the  expression  of  public  opinion.  The  society  was 
conceived  to  be  in  the  hands  of  its  rulers.  Theo- 
retically the  Homeric  king  was  the  only  person 
who  had  a  right  to  speak,  even  in  the  assembly, 
and  if  any  one  else  wanted  the  floor,  he  had  the 
privilege  conferred  upon  him  by  being  handed  the 
royal  scepter.  The  assembly  of  all  tribal  members, 
in  earlier  European  times,  often  had  no  other  mode 
of  expression  than  applause  or  silence  in  the  face 
of  an  announcement  of  intent.  But  this  state 
of  inarticulateness  was  succeeded  by  the  evolu- 
tion of  various  devices  —  into  the  detail  of  which 
we  need  not  go  —  which  limited  the  power  of  the 


68  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

ruler  by  allowing  registration  of  the  popular  will. 
When  the  king  ceased  to  be  a  religious  fetish  and 
lost  "divine  right,"  there  fell  away,  for  the  eman- 
cipated peoples,  a  formidable  barrier  to  the  free 
expression  of  public  opinion. 

The  modern  form  of  adjustment  in  this  matter 
of  enfranchising  public  opinion  is  democracy, 
where,  as  the  etymology  of  the  term  indicates, 
recognition  is  accorded  to  no  ruler  at  all  except 
the  demos  or  people.  But  no  society  can  get 
along  without  an  executive  of  its  will.  There 
has  always  been  an  executive  of  the  society's  code ; 
the  only  difference  between  types  of  executive 
worth  mentioning  in  this  connection  has  lain  in 
the  degree  of  responsibility  imposed.  The  execu- 
tive is  but  a  man,  and  he  belongs  to  some  class 
in  the  society.  If  not  responsible,  he  may  try 
to  impose  a  capricious  personal  will  or  the  special 
code  of  his  class.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was 
always  a  limit  to  this  sort  of  thing,  even  if  it  had 
to  be  established  by  assassination.  Deposition  of 
some  sort  has  been  common  enough  under  un- 
limited monarchies.  Under  the  constitutional 
monarchy,  the  constitution  or  charter  of  rights 
laid  down  the  essentials  of  the  national  code,  and 
the  executive  was  held  responsible  for  its  defense 
and  upholding,  as  well  as  limited  to  action  within 


PUBLIC  OPINION  69 

it.  If  he  or  his  class  abused  their  position  of 
power  to  tamper  with  the  code  of  rights,  there  was 
always  the  expedient  of  revolution.  But,  in  the 
recession  from  violence  or  from  situations  fraught 
with  the  threat  of  violence,  all  of  which  menaced 
the  very  peace-group  itself,  the  device  of  "peace- 
ful revolution,"  or  election,  arose  as  a  better  ad- 
justment. Nowadays  the  executive  —  president 
or  premier  —  is  subject  to  periodic  examination 
at  the  bar  of  public  opinion ;  the  issue  is  as  to 
whether  he  has  executed  its  mandates  or  not. 
Meanwhile  the  king,  where  there  is  one,  is  a 
survival  except  as  he  symbolizes  continuity,  and 
in  some  other  relatively  unimportant  respects. 

The  election,  though  it  is  associated  with  per- 
sons, is  essentially  a  selection  in  the  details  of  the 
national  code  —  details  surrounding  the  unques- 
tioned essentials  to  which  allusion  has  several 
times  been  made.  Some  elections  are  frankly  the 
decision  of  an  issue,  as,  for  example,  woman- 
sujffrage ;  and  the  party  platforms  sometimes 
make  a  clear  presentation  of  an  issue,  as  where 
protection  and  free  trade  have  stood  over  against 
one  another.  A  party  espouses  a  certain  type  of 
societal  policy  and  draws  its  adherents  from  cer- 
tain well-recognized  groups  in  the  population 
that  have,  or  think  they  have,  interests  in  common. 


70  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

A  revolt  against  the  traditional  code  may  bring 
about  a  new  alignment,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Pro- 
gressives. However,  when  certain  men  have  been 
elected,  while  it  is  understood  that  their  special 
policies  are  to  prosper  with  them,  they  are  yet 
bound  to  uphold  the  national  code  and  to  look 
after  the  essential  interests  of  all  their  constituents, 
of  whatever  political  faith.  The  representatives 
are  those  to  whom  is  delegated  the  selective 
power  of  public  opinion,  so  far  as  their  constitu- 
encies go,  but  the  delegating  body  can  hold  them 
responsible,  for  it  has  regularly  recurring  oppor- 
tunities to  continue  or  discontinue  its  representa- 
tives. The  move  toward  the  referendum  and 
recall  indicates  discontent  with  the  traditional 
system  of  representation,  and  impatience  over 
having  to  wait  awhile  for  a  chance  to  rebuke  and 
change  representatives.  It  is  an  important  new 
variation  at  the  end  of  a  long  line  of  development, 
some  of  whose  intervening  phases  we  have  re- 
viewed, stretching  from  an  era  of  restriction  of 
the  popular  voice  toward  ever  greater  freedom. 

Election  is  the  typical  modern  method  by  which 
societal  selection  is  accomplished  within  the  peace- 
group,  and  an  altered  adjustment  is  attained.  It 
is  not  asserted,  however,  that  a  single  such  ex- 
pression of  public  opinion  must  be  "right."     The 


PUBLIC  OPINION  71 

candid  examination  of  an  American  election  ^ 
makes  one  dubious  as  to  the  efficacy  of  public 
opinion  to  secure  expedient  societal  adjustments 
by  this  method.  It  can  be  swayed  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  by  interested  and  unscrupulous 
parties  —  let  one  refer  to  Lecky  on  the  function 
of  the  demagogue  in  a  democracy,^  or  to  Sumner 
on  "Legislation  by  Clamor."^  But  we  have  as 
yet  no  surer  device  for  appraising  public  senti- 
ment within  a  peace-group.  It  is  needful  for 
any  one  who  wishes  to  see  what  there  is  in  any 
evolutionary  process  to  realize  that  much  has 
been  done  in  the  lapse  of  time  which  we  cannot 
perceive  going  on  under  our  eyes.  We  have 
gained  many  an  expedient  adjustment  of  society 
at  the  hand  of  public  opinion  when,  to  contempo- 
raries, it  appeared  that  the  popular  will,  in  the 
contradictoriness  of  its  expressions,  practically 
cancelled  out.  A  societal  process  must  be  allowed 
its  time  and  be  viewed  over  a  long  perspective; 
it  should  not  be  judged  by  a  series  of  isolated  and 
perhaps  erratic  swings.  Only  it  cannot  be  ac- 
credited with  purposeful  rationality  in  the  attain- 
ment of  adjustments,  and  least  of  all  can  it  be 

*  For  a  brief  account  of  the  election  as  a  method  of  societal  se- 
lection, see  Keller,  "Societal  Evolution,"  pp.  105-114. 

•  "Democracy  and  Liberty,"  I,  22-23. 

»  In  "The  Challenge  of  Facts  and  Other  Essays,"  pp.  186-187. 


72  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

referred  to  the  individual.  It  shows  a  general 
trend  and  some  very  actual  results,  when  viewed 
over  a  long  enough  course  and  in  perspective. 
Evolution  does  not  produce  perfection.  It  does 
not  even  bring  forth  a  superlative,  but  only  com- 
paratives. Before  despairing,  one  should  always 
compare  the  evolutionary  product  with  what 
went  before.  Defective  as  the  election  is,  in 
isolated  instances,  one  would  be  a  bold  man  to 
advocate  going  back  to  the  theory  and  practice 
out  of  which  this  freer  expression  of  public 
opinion  once  developed. 

On  the  face  of  it,  and  in  short  perspective,  the 
lodgment  of  power  in  a  few  individuals,  or  even 
in  one  autocrat,  seems  to  attain  an  efficiency 
toward  which  a  democracy  vainly  strains.  And 
yet,  to  go  back  to  a  monarchical  system  would  be 
to  return  to  a  superseded  societal  form. 


VIII.    THE   INTERNATIONAL  PEACE- 
GROUP 

Hitherto  the  peace-group  has  been  taken  to 
include,  at  most,  a  nation,  and  the  social  code  to 
be,  as  its  widest,  a  national  code.  But  the  peace- 
group  has  shown  an  ampler  extension  than  this ; 
empires  have  become  veritable  peace-groups, 
when  covered  by  the  Magna  Pax  Romana  or  the 
Magna  Pax  Britannica.  With  such  cases  in  mind 
the  conception  of  the  peace-group  may  be  much 
expanded.  But  I  do  not  want  to  stop  short, 
in  the  present  instance,  of  the  widest  practicable 
application  and  implication  of  much  that  has 
been  set  down  in  preceding  pages.  If  "human 
brotherhood"  is  ever  realized,  the  peace-group 
will  be  coterminous  with  the  world.  However, 
not  to  consider  Utopias,  let  us  put  some  such 
question  as  this :  Have  not  civilized  nations,  at 
least  temporarily,  actually  formed  a  grand  peace- 
group  ;  and  is  there  not  in  existence,  even  now, 
an  international  peace-group  and  also  a  code  of 
civilized  nations,  covering  essential  international 

73 


74  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

adjustments,  to  which  all  civiUzed  nations  have 
at  least  professed  adherence  ? 

Whether  or  not  civilized  nations  have  been  at 
war  for  fully  as  much  of  their  time  in  the  modern 
period  as  in  former  ones/  it  appears  that  warfare 
between  nations,  where  the  contending  parties 
have  both  been  representatives  of  high  civilization, 
has  been  progressively  less  frequent.  And  it 
certainly  seems  safe  to  say  that  war  has  not 
taken  place  over  such  a  variety  of  issues,  some  of 
them  relatively  trivial,  as  was  formerly  the  case. 
It  has  not  taken  place  at  all,  in  recent  times, 
without  assertions  of  reluctance  on  both  sides 
and  without  mutual  accusations,  between  the 
enemies,  of  having  transgressed  certain  traditional 
norms  of  conduct.  Such  transgression  must 
constitute,  it  is  assumed,  in  the  eyes  of  all  civilized 
peoples,  guilt  deserving  of  punishment.  Peace 
is  in  the  international  mores ;  whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  actuality  of  war,  the  tradition  respect- 
ing international  relations  of  civilized  peoples 
assumes  a  peace  unbroken  save  under  the  most 
exceptional  circumstances.  The  fact  that  "con- 
fidence-men" attain  success  is  no  proof  that  most 
people  are  dishonest ;  quite  the  reverse,  for  that 
success  is  attained  because  people  confide  in  one 

1  See  Woods  and  Baltzly,  "Is  War  Diminishing?" 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE-GROUP        75 

another's  honesty.  Germany's  doings  do  not 
witness  for  the  non-existence  of  an  international 
code,  but  prove  rather  that  most  nations  were 
depending  upon  such  a  code,  with  its  tradition  of 
international  conduct,  as  on  a  very  real  and  trust- 
worthy thing. 

In  so  far  as  this  tradition  has  represented  the 
facts,  the  civilized  nations  have  formed  an  inter- 
national peace-group ;  and  even  when  the  tradi- 
tion has  not  been  followed  by  all,  it  has  yet  borne 
witness  to  a  tendency  towards  the  formation 
of  such  a  group.  The  very  circumstance  that 
appeal  was  made,  even  hypocritically,  to  a  tradi- 
tion of  international  behavior,  indicates  that  a 
set  of  international  mores  has  at  least  been  in 
process  of  formation.  There  was  no  law  to  appeal 
to.  It  has  been  asserted  with  much  justice  that, 
despite  university  courses  in  the  subject,  there 
is  no  international  law;  but  all  civilized  nations 
have  recognized  a  body  of  international  prece- 
dents, and  there  has  even  been  an  effort  to  legal- 
ize them  by  setting  up  an  international  tribunal. 
Evidently  there  has  been  rapprochement  of  an  in- 
ternational nature,  which  exhibits  all  the  essential 
marks  of  an  at  least  incipient  peace-group.  This 
societal  expedient,  beginning  in  the  primitive 
family,    has   extended   to   include   tribe,    nation. 


76  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

and  even  empire;  and  it  seems  not  yet  to  have 
exhausted  its  scope.  The  international  peace- 
group,  if  it  has  not  arrived,  has  gotten  well  along 
in  the  process  of  becoming. 

There  is  no  inherent  reason  why  the  extension 
of  the  peace-group  must  be  limited  by  national 
boundaries.  It  is  an  adaptation  to  conditions  of 
living  presented  to  human  society ;  and  if  it  has 
shown  undoubted  survival-value  for  ever  larger 
and  larger  societies,  and  has  successfully  tran- 
scended boundary  after  boundary,  the  inference 
is  that  there  is  no  limit  to  its  expediency  set  by 
the  increasing  size  of  the  compounded  societal 
group.  But  it  is  also  evident  that,  since  the 
peace-group  is  made  possible  only  by  the  fact  that 
its  members  possess  essential  mores  and  interests 
in  common,  so  that  they  may  all  adhere  to  a 
broad  code  in  the  matter  of  the  essentials  of  con- 
duct, competing  as  respects  minor  interests  with- 
out violence  —  it  is  evident,  I  say,  that  each  exten- 
sion of  this  group  involves  greater  complexity  and 
refinement  of  adjustment.  The  larger  the  peace- 
group,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fewer  the  mores  held 
in  common  by  all  parties.  The  code  of  the  large 
peace-group  is  composed  of  few  items  ;  more  inter- 
ests have  to  be  settled  by  competition ;  and  so  there 
is  always  more  chance  that  violence  will  break  out. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE-GROUP       77 

One  of  the  essentials  of  a  stable  peace-group  is 
that  its  constituent  parts  shall  understand  each 
other,  at  least  in  a  general  way.  This  is  one  of 
the  fundamental  reasons  for  insisting  upon  a 
single  national  language ;  the  peace-group  that 
can  place  that  one  of  the  mores  in  its  code  adds 
immensely  to  its  stability.  Compare  the  British 
and  the  Dual  Empires  in  the  matter  of  their 
stability,  and  note  the  efforts  of  Germany  to 
further  the  assimilation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  by 
forcing  out  the  former  tongue.  But  all  such 
insistence  upon  homogeneity  in  the  national  unit 
accentuates  its  individuality ;  and  that  makes  the 
formation  of  a  larger  international  composite  the 
more  difficult.  The  more  perfect  the  organization 
of  the  national  peace-groups,  and  the  more  settled 
and  definite  their  codes,  the  more  trouble  is  there 
bound  to  be  in  the  construction  of  an  inter- 
national peace-group.  It  is  like  trying  to  secure 
a  general  agreement  among  adult  persons  of 
pronounced  convictions  and  individuality. 

Aside  from  the  obvious  difference  in  language, 
the  separate  nations  have  never  understood  one 
another  very  well,  and  their  divergences  have  been 
emphasized  by  their  ethnocentrism.  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  the  adjustment  to  civilized  society's 
life-conditions    represented    by    an    international 


78  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

peace-group  is  as  yet  an  imperfect  one.  It  could 
never  have  appeared  at  all  except  for  the  previous 
partial  conquest  of  numerous  barriers  calculated 
to  keep  nations  apart  and  unable  to  understand 
one  another.  These  barriers  were  such  as  pre- 
vented or  hindered  the  inter-transmission  of  the 
mores,  and  their  conquest  was  at  the  hand  of 
agencies,  for  the  most  part  automatically  de- 
veloped, which  furthered  such  transmission. 

Of  all  the  agencies  which  have  brought  groups 
of  men  into  proximity  so  that  they  could  know 
and  learn  from  one  another,  become  similar, 
tolerant,  or  even,  at  length,  friendly,  by  far  the 
most  effective  is  trade.  Doubtless  the  first 
peaceful  meeting-ground  of  tribes  and  nations 
was  the  market.  The  development  of  trade  has 
been  a  thoroughly  and  typically  natural  and  auto- 
matic movement,  directed  by  immediate  self- 
interest  and  with  no  purpose  in  view  except  the 
realization  of  definite,  material  ends.  Yet,  al- 
though the  trader  directly  and  consciously 
assaulted  no  one  of  the  barriers  to  peace  and  the 
mutual  assimilation  of  codes,  he  ended  by  under- 
mining and  levelling  most  of  them.  He  trans- 
mitted products,  then  processes,  then  mores  in 
general,  between  nation  and  nation.  I  need  not 
go^nto   the   detail   of   this   transmission,    which 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE-GROUP        79 

resulted  in  a  spreading  similarity  in  civilization 
and  a  consequent  lessening  of  the  feeling  of 
strangeness  and  hostility.  Other  agencies  of 
transmission  operated  along  with  trade,  the  most 
modern  of  these  being,  perhaps,  the  novel. 
Most  people  know  little  of  Russia,  for  example, 
outside  of  what  Turgenev,  Dostoyevski,  and  other 
Russian  writers  have  told  them.  The  net  result 
of  all  the  inter-transmission  has  been  the  possi- 
bility of  the  rapprochement  of  which  I  have 
spoken.  When  that  possibility  emerged,  the 
automatic  drift  of  civilized  nations  was  toward 
an  agreement  upon  essentials,  and  a  shifting  of 
conflict  from  its  violent  phase  into  an  industrial, 
commercial,  or  other  peaceable  competition. 

This  is,  on  the  larger  scale,  what  happened  in 
the  formation  of  the  more  limited  peace-group. 
There  are  essentials  upon  which  all  combining 
elements  at  least  profess  to  agree ;  then  there  are 
the  minor  matters  concerning  which  they  remain 
in  constant,  but  peaceful  conflict  and  competition. 
But  nations  are  not  so  willing  to  sign  away  portions 
of  their  independence  as  are  constituent  groups 
within  the  same  nation ;  there  is  not  the  same 
mutual  confidence,  nor  is  there  the  same  apparatus 
of  centralization.  Nearly  all  groups  in  this 
country  are  willing  to  abide  by  the  decisions  of 


80  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

the  Supreme  Court ;  but  when  it  comes  to  an  in- 
ternational court  of  arbitration,  certain  reserva- 
tions are  made,  for  example,  touching  questions 
of  national  "honor."  No  nation  is  sure  that  all 
of  the  essentials  of  its  code  are  going  to  be  rep- 
resented in  the  official  international  code  which 
such  a  court  is  designed  to  interpret. 

Each  nation  is  concerned  for  its  interests  be- 
cause the  comparatively  few  items  of  the  inter- 
national code  have  to  be  stated  in  comprehensive 
and  therefore  somewhat  vague  terms,  and  seem 
susceptible  of  a  variety  of  interpretations.  And 
there  has  been  developed  no  system  for  checking  up 
the  international  authorities,  in  so  far  as  they  may 
be  taken  to  exist  at  all.  The  whole  organization 
of  the  international  peace-group  is,  in  brief, 
inchoate  and  unstable,  and  public  opinion,  with- 
out reasoning  that  out,  feels  it  and  becomes  wary 
of  committing  itself.  Perhaps  if  there  could  have 
been  a  world-empire  of  some  sort,  corresponding 
to  the  original  despotism  of  the  group-chief, 
there  would  have  been  something  definite  and 
actual  to  check  and  modify,  as  there  was  in  the 
case  of  the  smaller  society.  The  case  is  always 
more  natural  where  there  is  something  positive 
upon  which  to  use  negative,  restrictive  methods, 
than  where  there  is  something  to  build  up   out 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  PEACE-GROUP        81 

of  chaotic  materials.  Most  human  institutions 
are  formed  as  the  statue  is  freed  from  the  rugged 
block,  by  hacking,  and  at  length  chiseling  away 
the  jagged  corners  and  unlovely  attachments 
that  imprison  the  real  figure,  as  someone  has 
expressed  it,  within  the  originally  rude  mass. 

Yet  there  has  been,  in  peace-group  forming, 
something  original  and  crude  to  hack  at  and  to 
chisel  down,  and  that  was  the  general  savagery  of 
former  international  relations.  The  rude  and 
shapeless  block,  in  the  case  of  any  human  in- 
stitution, has  been  always  a  chaotic  mass  of 
mores,  and  the  drill  and  chisel  have  been  the  taboo. 
The  taboo  has  been  the  great  institution-shaper. 
Let  us  desert,  for  the  time,  the  apparently  dubious 
recent  projects  aimed  at  the  creation  of  an  inter- 
national peace-group,  and  look  into  the  process 
from  the  other  end,  trying  to  follow  somewhat 
up  its  line  of  evolution.  This  will  lead  us  to 
consider  the  modification  of  the  earlier  forms 
toward  what  we  have,  rather  than  to  speculate 
upon  what  we  can  do,  by  taking  thought,  or  to 
worry  over  what  seems,  in  our  disillusionment, 
impossible. 


IX.   THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE 

We  start,  then,  from  the  violent  conflict  between 
tribes  and  nations  and  are  to  follow  its  modifica- 
tions toward  peaceful  competition.  Always  out  of 
the  war-element  have  sprung  variations  making 
for  peace ;  and,  though  we  cannot  often  see  the  why 
and  how,  it  is  yet  an  undeniable  fact  that  they 
have  survived  and  replaced  mores  of  violence. 
The  methods  of  the  violent  conflict  itseK  have  been 
altered  toward  mildness.  Once  warfare  was  like 
the  chase  and  utterly  unregulated  by  any  taboos. 
There  was  no  warning  declaration,  no  quarter  to 
the  vanquished,  no  chivalry  of  any  sort.  Poisoned 
springs,  poisoned  thorns  planted  upright  in  the 
path,  or  poisoned  weapons  were  common  enough 
in  war-practice.  Any  method  was  good  that 
secured  the  result.  But  long  ago  all  this  was 
altered :  then  declaration  came  seldom  to  be 
omitted,  prisoners  were  adopted  or  enslaved,  and 
the  duel  or  the  gantlet  gave  a  captive  at  least  a 
theoretic  chance.  Odysseus  could  get  no  poison 
in  Ephyre  to  anoint  his  arrows  withal,  for  the 

82 


I 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  83 

man  to  whom  he  applied  would  not  give,  fearing 
the  immortal  gods.  The  other  forms  of  poisoning, 
assaults  without  warning,  mutilation,  torture,  and 
many  another  savage  custom  were  superseded. 
The  rules  of  war  were  developed  —  rules  that  a 
proper  man  or  tribe  would  not  think  of  infring- 
ing. For  most  savage  peoples  war  became,  in  a 
certain  rude  sense,  a  gentleman's  game.  Punctilios 
grew  up  along  these  lines  until  warfare  became  as 
humane,  courteous,  and  high-minded  as  such  a 
practice  could  well  be. 

There  were  developed  also  small  oases  or  nuclei 
of  peace,  in  the  shape  of.  truces  for  burying  the 
dead  or  for  other  purposes,  and  treaties  of  alliance, 
offensive  and  defensive.  In  connection  with  trade, 
and  sanctioned  by  religion,  there  grew  up  several 
types  of  peace  —  the  market-peace,  the  temple- 
peace,  the  Peace  of  God.  The  mutual  suspicion 
that  is  revealed  so  significantly  in  "dumb  barter" 
or  "silent  trade"  was  allayed,  so  that  merchant 
and  customer  trusted  themselves  in  one  another's 
proximity,  even  unarmed.  Disputes  came  to  be 
discussed  and  smoothed  over,  revenge  for  injuries 
sustained  was  commuted  into  property-payments. 
The  apparatus,  personnel,  and  methods  of  diplo- 
macy began  to  appear.  Numerous  courteous 
forms  of  inter-group  communication  sprang  up  — 


84  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

forms  often  empty  in  the  fact,  but  whose  existence 
was  significant  of  conciliation  rather  than  of 
defiance  or  indifiference. 

Further  and  more  detailed  agreements  came 
to  be  made,  as  the  centuries  passed,  concerning 
the  occasions  and  methods  of  war-making,  con- 
cerning trade  in  all  its  aspects,  "freedom  of  the 
seas,"  spheres  of  interest  or  influence,  religion, 
extradition,  immigration,  copyright,  the  mails, 
and  thousands  of  other  matters,  smaller  and 
greater.  By  many  agreements  of  this  order,  and 
potentially  by  each  of  them,  there  was  averted 
an  unmistakable  possibility  of  resort  to  arms. 
They  were  nearly  all,  therefore,  in  effect  taboos 
on  violence,  and,  as  such,  constructive  of  peace. 
Among  civilized  nations  they  came  gradually  to 
constitute  a  series  of  traditions  or  precedents, 
and  behavior  in  accordance  with  this  code  became 
the  mark  of  the  civilized  nation  or  a  member 
thereof. 

Further  transmission  of  the  mores,  possible 
now  that  nations  might  be  at  peace  for  pro- 
tracted periods,  and  might  come,  through  the 
development  of  trade  and  communications,  to  be 
ever  better  acquainted  with  one  another,  led  to 
concurrence  of  all  in  variations  developed  by 
some.     The  Germans  speedily  adopted  the  Ameri- 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  85 

can  invention  or  process ;  the  Americans  visited 
the  German  cities  to  study  their  mmiicipal 
administration  with  a  view  to  adapting  and 
adopting  it.  Especially  did  the  New  World 
send  students  to  the  Old,  to  acquire  learning  and 
polish  of  manners.  Many  departments  of  societal 
life,  but  especially  the  economic,  took  on  an 
essential  similarity  over  the  civilized  world.  It 
was  a  case  of  concurrence  in  selected  variations 
which,  as  the  event  proved,  secured  better  adjust- 
ment to  the  life-conditions  of  the  several  societies. 

And  among  the  sweeping  adjustments  was  the 
democratic  state,  of  which  I  have  spoken  ;  freedom 
of  public  opinion  and  the  control  by  peoples  of 
their  own  destinies,  by  way  of  parliamentary 
government,  came  to  be  the  mode  in  the  civilized 
world. 

In  a  still  more  general  way,  the  evolution  of 
society  led  toward  the  supersession  of  mediaeval 
methods  resting  upon  suspicion  of  machiavellian 
policies  on  the  part  of  the  governments  of  fellow- 
nations.  All  could  not  be  trusted  to  general 
sentiments  of  mutual  fairness,  good-will,  and 
friendship,  however  insistently  these  were  voiced 
upon  public  occasions;  but  a  nation's  honor  was 
supposed  to  be  involved  in  the  keeping  of  its 
voluntary  engagements,  and  it  was  almost  if  not 


86  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

quite  unheard-of  that  a  government  should  not 
try  to  prove  that  it  had  been  honorable,  even 
though  it  had  not.  That  degree,  at  least,  of  def- 
erence to  the  international  code  could  be  counted 
on. 

For  there  was  here,  in  actuality,  such  a  code. 
I  have  not  aimed  at  exhaustiveness  in  the  pre- 
ceding sketch  of  the  mores  that  developed  within 
the  international  group.  The  group  was  an 
imperfect  thing,  and  the  code  was  not  imperative 
in  anything  like  the  same  degree  as  a  national 
code  with  a  government  behind  it.  It  could  not 
be  that,  in  the  past  or  present,  and  may  never 
be  so.  But  it  is  plain  enough  that  civilized 
nations  have  been  long  on  the  way  toward  an 
automatic  ordering  of  their  joint  destiny  —  long 
on  the  way,  to  secure  even  so  imperfect  a  result  as 
the  one  before  us,  with  the  inferential  prospect 
of  remaining  yet  long  on  the  way  before  it  can 
be  realized  in  any  perfection  —  plainly,  howevcFj 
on  the  way,  if  a  long  enough  sweep  of  societal 
evolution  is  surveyed. 

Now  it  is  possible  to  get  a  sense  of  the  real 
existence  of  an  international  code  by  asking  why  a 
certain  nation,  say  Turkey,  is  not  included  within 
the  concourse  of  civilization.  The  former  Ar- 
menian  massacres,  together  with  many  another 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  87 

sinister  performance,  rule  her  out.  And  why? 
Because  such  things  are  forbidden  by  the  civiHzed 
code.  Russia's  pogroms,  and  the  general  character 
of  her  government,  were  hardly  outweighed  by 
certain  positive  qualifications.  But  Japan  was 
of  the  group.  The  disqualifications  are  easier 
to  name  than  the  qualifications  for  membership. 
It  is  a  harder  task  to  determine  what  conduct  is 
consonant  with  a  code  than  what  is  not;  for  the 
code,  from  the  Decalogue  down,  is  couched,  if 
reduced  at  all  to  form,  in  the  negative  —  Thou 
shalt  not. 

In  general,  it  is  to  those  same  mores  which 
enable  a  smaller  society  to  hold  together  in 
adjustment  to  life-conditions  that  nations  must 
cling,  if  they  are  to  form,  or  while  they  form,  even 
temporarily,  a  peace-group.  We  have  seen  that 
the  two  taboos  on  killing  and  stealing  have  had  to 
be  enforced  as  a  condition  of  societal  survival. 
But  all  such  taboos  confer  rights;  the  two  just 
mentioned  confer  respectively  the  right  to  life 
and  the  right  to  property  within  the  peace-group 
—  not  outside,  for  peace  is  preserved  only  within 
the  boundaries,  and  it  has  always  been  laudable 
to  kill  and  rob  the  member  of  the  "out-group." 
Similarly,  all  the  taboos  connected  with  any  code 
confer  rights  of  one  kind  or  another  upon  the 


88  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

adherents  of  the  code,  that  is,  the  members  of  the 
peace-group  in  question.  And  there  is  a  duty 
corresponding  to  each  such  right,  imposed  upon 
each  group-member,  namely,  to  support  the  right 
conferred.  In  a  stable  peace-group  any  member 
may  be  called  upon  to  help  enforce  the  code  and 
punish  its  transgressor  —  to  enforce  and  punish 
by  violence,  if  need  be.  The  extreme  of  individual 
punishment  is  always  exclusion,  permanent  or 
for  a  term,  from  the  society.  The  laws,  being 
the  crystallized  part  of  the  code,  carry  a  threat  of 
such  punishment  for  conduct  varying  widely  from 
the  norm.  Minor  offenses  against  local  codes 
are  visited  with  ostracism,  ridicule,  and  other 
milder  penalties. 

It  is  now  proposed  to  do  something  analogous 
in  a  wider  field  —  something  in  the  line  of  enforce- 
ment of  the  international  code  through  the  pro- 
jected League  to  Lnforce  Peace.  We  are  not 
interested  here  in  programs,  but  in  historic  fact. 
The  fact  is  that  each  of  the  nations  now  bellig- 
erent claims  to  be  fighting  because  it,  or  some 
other  member  of  the  concourse  of  civilized  nations, 
has  been  injured  as  respects  some  right  guaranteed 
by  the  common  code.  But  this  implies  that  the 
international  peace-group  ought  to  have  been 
able  to  make  good  its  guarantee  without  any  one 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  89 

resorting  to  arms,  and  that  it  has  failed.  And 
that  implication  introduces  the  query  as  to 
whether  an  enlarged  peace-group  can  assure  any 
international  rights  by  peaceful  means. 

But  now  the  international  peace-group  has  not 
yet  taken  form  sufficiently  to  have  developed 
apparatus  for  guaranteeing  anything.  Even  the 
very  ancient  nation  had  a  king  into  whose  hands 
the  mores  were  delivered  for  safeguarding;  but 
there  is  no  corresponding  international  func- 
tionary. There  is  no  executive.  There  is  also 
no  law-making  body,  nor  yet  a  judiciary  whose 
authority  is  habitually  deferred  to.  If  we  ask 
what  rights  the  international  peace-group  might 
claim  to  secure  —  which  is  equivalent,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  inquiring  as  to  what  taboos  there 
are  in  the  international  code  —  we  find  that  these 
latter  are  nowhere  stated  in  authoritative  guise, 
as  in  a  constitution.  They  are  not  codified  in 
specific  form ;  they  are  not  even  recorded  in  a 
generalized  form.  Some  authors  have  sought  to 
assemble  international  cases  or  to  generalize  upon 
international  usage  in  some  particular  field,  but 
no  recognized  codification  has  emerged. 

The  international  political  or  governmental 
organization  —  the  apparatus  for  international 
control  —  is  where  the  organization  of  the  national 


90  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

peace-group  was  some  time  ago.  There  is,  among 
civilized  nations,  a  common  public  opinion,  and 
that  public  opinion  can  and  does  distinguish 
between  civilized  and  other  conduct.  There  are 
also  precedents  based  upon  former  settlements, 
secured  by  conflict  or  compromise  between  two 
or  more  nations.  But  that  is  all  there  is.  For 
enforcing  its  behests  the  "judgment  of  civiliza- 
tion" is  provided  with  no  current  and  usual  means 
short  of  violence  or  the  threat  of  violence. 

Nations  stand  toward  one  another  a  good  deal 
as  individuals  or  small  societies  stood,  before  the 
advent  of  enforceable  law;  they  strive  to  realize 
their  own  interests  with  small  heed  to  the  wider 
interests  of  the  corporate  body  of  which  they  are 
coming  to  form  a  part.  They  make  common 
cause  with,  or  fall  into  disagreement  with  their 
fellows,  according  as  their  lasting  or  shifting 
interests  harmonize  or  antagonize.  The  result 
is  large-scale  alignment  or  opposition,  on  the 
order  of  the  party  alliance  and  opposition  within 
the  better  organized  smaller  peace-group.  But 
there  is  no  way  of  really  settling  differences  short 
of  force.  There  is  no  parallel  to  the  election, 
but  at  best  a  veiled  military  menace.  Ententes, 
understandings,  treaties,  balancings  of  power  are 
the    only    devices    for    preserving    the    peace  — 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  91 

between  the  contracting  parties  as  well  as  between 
the  alliance  and  awed  outsiders  —  and  these  as- 
sociations are  only  as  strong  as  their  weakest 
links,  their  least  interested  members.  They  are 
often  also  secret  arrangements,  a  fact  which  leads 
of  course  to  mutual  distrust  and  suspicion.  They 
are  untrustworthy  and  always  imply  a  threat  of 
violence.  They  are  very  far  inferior  to  the 
arrangements  for  securing  the  rights  of  component 
parts,  as  developed  in  the  older  and  smaller  types 
of  the  peace-group.  There  is,  in  a  word,  no  in- 
ternational organization  of  control.  There  is  a 
recession  from  war  as  a  means  of  settlement,  but 
there  is  nothing  definite  and  reliable  to  take  its 
place. 

There  is  only  the  diplomacy  that  finds  its 
expression  in  the  treaties  and  other  arrangements 
alluded  to.  This  factor,  however,  is  not  to  be 
despised.  I  have  quoted  some  one  who  said : 
"  If  peoples  are  mad  enough,  they  will  fight ;  "  and 
the  speaker  added :  "If  they  aren't,  the  ordinary 
means  of  diplomacy  will  do."  That  is,  diplomacy 
will  secure  peace  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  on  the 
minor  issues.  It  may  prevent  a  minor  issue  from 
becoming,  through  misunderstanding  and  excite- 
ment, a  major  one.  It  is  full  of  compromise  and 
of  the  quid  pro  quo.     It  is  like  the  settlement  out 


92  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

of  court.  It  helps  to  make  precedents,  and  has 
been  of  solid  utility  in  preventing  conflict.  But 
it  represents  no  real  control.  It  has  no  organiza- 
tion and  is  generally  an  affair  of  two  nations  rather 
than  an  international  thing.  It  shows  a  set  of 
variations  in  international  mores  rather  than  a 
settled  institutional  form.  Its  practice  represents 
international  politics  rather  than  international 
statesmanship. 

But  its  out-reachings  are  promising,  as  the 
variation  is  always  prophetic  of  better  adaptation. 
Once  there  was  no  diplomacy  to  speak  of,  and 
what  there  was  lay  between  small  isolated  tribes ; 
now  its  field  has  expanded  and  it  is  doing  for  the 
larger  groups  what  it  once  did  for  the  smaller. 
There  it  led  to  closer  and  closer  agreements  and 
to  alliances ;  and  it  is  the  basis,  as  we  have  seen, 
of  the  ententes  and  other  wide  rapprochements  of 
great  nations.  It  undoubtedly  prevented  tribal 
wars  and  spread  mutual  knowledge  and  tolerance ; 
and  it  has  unquestionably  staved  off  international 
conflict  and  brought  nations  into  alliance  for  a 
common  cause.  It  has  also  improved  in  quality, 
until,  in  the  most  enlightened  hands,  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  mere  art  of  trickery  and  double- 
dealing  ;  the  diplomat  is  supposed  to  guard  the 
honor  of  his  country.     It  is  a  shock  to  the  civilized 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  93 

world  when  an  accredited  representative  of  a  civil- 
ized nation  takes  advantage  of  the  hospitality  ac- 
corded him  to  exhibit  the  traits  of  uncivilization. 
In  such  a  case,  the  government  that  sent  him 
hastens  to  disavow  and  punish  his  action,  at  least 
in  form,  unless  it  wishes  to  recognize  him,  and  it, 
as  correctly  representing  his  country  of  origin  and 
its  degree  of  civilization.  However,  diplomacy  is 
not  the  definite  thing  that  can  replace  violent 
conflict  between  nations,  as  the  political  competi- 
tion has  displaced  the  conflict  in  arms  within  the 
range  of  a  centralized  governmental  control. 
International  competition  has  not  yet  arrived  at 
any  settled  form  of  combination  representing  an 
adjustment  that  renders  the  primitive  form  of 
militancy  obsolete. 

Within  the  smaller  peace-group,  with  its  politi- 
cal competition,  the  peace  is  to  be  kept,  who- 
ever wins.  Nothing  such  appears  in  the  larger 
group.  One  nation  is  overreached  in  diplomacy, 
and  at  once  gets  ready  to  adjourn  to  another  arena 
where  diplomacy  is  not.  But  within  both  smaller 
and  larger  groups  there  is  a  further  form  of 
peaceful  competition,  the  industrial  and  commer- 
cial, or,  to  cover  both  terms  with  one,  the  economic. 
It  is  very  largely  in  connection  with  this  form  of 
conflict  that  diplomacy  has  been  developed.    Com- 


94  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

mercial  competition,  in  earlier  times,  was  a 
development  out  of  war-competition,  and  readily 
ran  back  into  the  violence  out  of  which  it  came. 
Piracy  was  a  sort  of  reverse  side  of  early  trade; 
for  a  long  time  the  violent  form  persisted  along- 
side the  peaceful  one,  and  the  merchant  was  trader 
or  pirate  according  to  circumstances.  Trade 
wars  were  common  even  after  the  world-market 
began  to  develop ;  every  rival  nation  was  after  a 
monopoly,  which  was  successively  held  by  force, 
and  lost  to  force,  by  Venetians,  Portuguese, 
Spanish,  and  Dutch.  Then  came  agreements  of 
various  sorts,  arranged  by  diplomatic  agents,  and 
accompanied  by  the  growth  of  the  sentiment  that 
they  must  be  lived  up  to. 

When  the  international  competition  became 
also  industrial,  that  is,  when  a  market  was  sought 
for  the  products  of  national  industries,  the  con- 
flict became  even  keener.  But  the  competitors 
clung  to  peace  as  to  an  indispensable  condition. 
In  the  economic  field  the  trade-war  was  no  longer 
a  matter  of  guns.  There  was  talk  about  trade 
following  the  flag,  while  the  world  was  not  as 
yet  partitioned  off  into  spheres  of  influence  and 
colonies  ;  but  latterly  it  was  seen  by  most  civilized 
nations  that,  despite  tariff  barriers  and  other 
artificial   hindrances,   economic   success   went   to 


ll 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  95 

the  nation  that  could  most  ejQaciently  produce 
and  most  skillfull  market  its  wares.  The 
economic  competition  was  what  engaged  the  at- 
tention of  the  most  advanced  nations,  and  the 
possibility  of  a  resort  to  violence  seemed,  for  the 
most  part,  remote.  Few  realized  that  Germany 
could  not  be  content  with  her  rapid  and  regular 
successes  in  this  competition,  but  was  eagerly 
awaiting  the  day  when  she  might  destroy  the 
great  rival  upon  whom  she  was  pressing,  in  legiti- 
mate wise,  so  closely.  There  was  here,  in  form  at 
least,  a  close  approximation  to  the  conditions 
obtaining  in  a  real  peace-group. 

As  I  have  said,  there  was  no  controlling  and 
guaranteeing  international  organization.  Confi- 
dence in  living  on  safely  under  keen  economic 
competition  rested  in  agreements  of  various  sorts, 
guaranteed  solely  by  the  good  faith  of  their 
makers.  It  was  in  the  mores  that  nations  should 
keep  their  word  and  serve  their  own  honor.  A 
"decent  respect  for  the  opinion  of  mankind" 
demanded  that.  It  was  so  much  a  matter  of 
course  that,  when  one  of  the  competitors  turned 
out  to  be  treacherous,  the  rest  were  taken  almost 
completely  by  surprise. 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  nations  were 
looking   out   for   one   another's   interests,    in   an 


96  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

altruistic  way.  That  was  not  the  reason  for 
even  that  unparalleled  British  freedom  of  trade 
under  which  alone  the  economic  successes  of  other 
nations  in  the  world-market  became  possible. 
No  nation  was  ready,  with  self-abnegation,  to 
fight  another's  battle,  or  in  any  way  to  support  a 
competitor  against  its  own  interest.  No  nation 
cared  to  interfere  with  another's  mores,  for  example 
with  polygamy,  in  a  purely  disinterested  way.  It 
was  precisely  because  each  was  pursuing  its  own 
interests  and  securing  agreements  that  furthered 
them  that,  as  in  the  smaller  peace-group,  the 
interests  of  all  were  in  the  proper  hands  and 
came  to  be  realized  to  a  degree  permitting  of 
content  under  the  system.  Nations,  like  classes, 
knew  their  own  interests  best,  and  in  confining 
their  attention  to  realizing  them,  were  trying  to 
do  precisely  what  they  were  best  fitted  to  do. 

The  query  emerged  above  as  to  whether  there 
were  any  rights  conferrable  by  the  international 
peace-group,  aside  from  the  exercise  of  a  violence, 
or  the  threat  of  such,  which,  in  action,  would 
render  the  group  no  peace-group  at  all.  It  was 
found  that  the  "judgment  of  civilization"  was 
provided  with  no  traditional  means  for  enforcing 
its  behests  short  of  violence  or  the  threat  of  it. 
The  only  other  means  in  sight  has  been  an  auto- 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  CODE  97 

matic  recession  from  economic  relations  with  a 
nation  that  might  exhibit  signs  of  economic 
untrust worthiness.  In  the  economic  competition, 
however,  civiHzed  nations  have  found  honesty  and 
honor,  or  at  least  the  counterfeit  presentment 
of  such,  so  good  a  policy  that  there  has  been 
little  sinning,  among  themselves,  against  it.  The 
opposite  qualities  have  been  the  mark  of  un- 
civilization  that  no  nation  wished  to  bear.  To 
keep  agreements  has  been  one  of  the  basic  qualifi- 
cations for  membership  in  the  concourse  of  civili- 
zation. The  possibility  of  ordering  existence 
within  any  peace-group  is  dependent  upon  the 
presence  of  that  practice  in  the  mores.  If  the 
sword  is  to  be  renounced,  there  must  be  something 
dependable  in  its  place.  Until  the  nature  of  the 
German  code  stood  revealed,  the  world  thought  it 
had  something  dependable  in  its  international 
treaties  and  covenants.  Let  us  consider  briefly 
the  nature  of  that  code  in  the  light  of  which  they 
meant  nothing. 


X.   THE   GERMAN  CODE 

No  nation,  in  the  pre-war  period,  was  succeeding 
better  in  the  commercial  and  industrial  competi- 
tion between  the  nations  than  was  Germany.  It 
was  she  who  injected  into  that  competition  an 
organization  and  system  before  unknown.  The 
hard-headed  English  business  man  of  the  past, 
largely  unaided  by  his  government,  had  opened 
wide  foreign  markets  with  unparalleled  success. 
The  English  method  of  trading  abroad  has  been 
described  as  "individualism  gone  mad."  It  is 
only  in  relatively  recent  years,  and  then  under 
the  stimulus  of  German  competition,  that  the 
British  government  has  lent  regular  and  systematic 
support  to  the  British  merchant. 

The  German  method  was  systematically 
paternalistic.  The  individual  German  trader 
was,  indeed,  practical  and  systematic;  and^he 
has  been  aided  at  every  turn  by  government- 
fostered  corporations  and  other  trade-promoting 
agencies,  and  also  directly  by  the  state  itself. 
"The  one  characteristic  of  the  trade  organization 

98 


THE  GERMAN  CODE  99 

of  Germany,"  wrote  Professor  Bishop,  in  the 
Atlantic  for  May,  1914,  "which  makes  more 
toward  efficiency  than  anything  else  is  the  co- 
operation which  exists  between  the  government, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  business  interests  on  the 
other." 

There  have  been  in  Germany  a  number  of 
organizations  with  interminable  names  and  equally 
interminable  enterprise  and  funds :  The  Imperial 
Consultative  Board  for  the  Elaboration  of  Com- 
mercial Measures,  for  example.  The  German 
Consular  Service  has  advised  the  merchant  at 
all  times.  The  government  has  issued  tons  of 
literature  for  his  instruction  and  profit.  The 
railways  have  been  caused  to  assist  him,  and  the 
banks  as  well.  The  amount  of  official  care  taken 
in  this  matter  is  astonishing  in  its  magnitude. 
All  this  is  immensely  costly  —  too  costly  for  any 
other  agency  than  the  state  —  but  it  has  seemed 
to  prove  itself  worth  the  price. 

More  than  this,  the  government,  meaning  Bis- 
marck, a  most  skillful  observer  of  the  mores,  was 
converted,  along  in  the  early  eighties,  to  the 
creation  of  a  colonial  empire.  It  promptly  seized 
three  large  areas  and  one  small  one  in  Africa;  a 
section  of  New  Guinea  and  the  adjacent  Melane- 
sian  archipelago,  re-named  "  Bismarck- Archipel "  ; 


100  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

a  section  of  a  province  in  China;  and  certain 
small  islands  in  the  Pacific.^  The  representations 
of  German  merchants,  and  their  plea  for  protection 
and  for  areas  of  trade-expansion,  were  largely 
responsible  for  this  movement.  This  colonial 
empire,  as  I  have  elsewhere  remarked,  was  a 
veritable  seizure  from  under  the  very  paws  of  the 
British  lion.  The  German  Commissioner  beat  the 
British  agent  to  Togo,  the  Cameroons,  and  South- 
west Africa  by  hours,  and  the  Melanesian  holdings 
were  taken  in  the  face  of  British  and  Australian 
intentions  of  occupation.  The  Chinese  station 
was  exacted,  under  a  ninety-nine  year  "lease,"  in 
consequence  of  the  murder  of  certain  German 
missionaries ;  and  the  current  feeling  as  to  the 
transaction  found  expression  in  the  soliloquy 
attributed  to  the  Kaiser  by  a  comic  paper:  "If 
my  missionaries  only  hold  out,  I  shall  soon  own 
the  earth."  East  Africa  was  acquired  by  the 
efforts  of  three  young  adventurers  who,  sailing 
under  assumed  names  and  disguised  as  laborers, 
but  with  the  support  of  the  Society  for  German 
Colonization,  cajoled  a  bundle  of  treaties,  im- 
perfectly if  at  all  understood,  out  of  native  chiefs. 
It  was  felt  at  the  time  that  these  proceedings 

1  The  story  of  German  colonization  is  rehearsed  in  some  detail  in 
Keller,  "Colonization." 


THE  GERMAN  CODE  101 

partook  of  the  cavalier  in  nature,  but  the  British 
statesmen  were  too  dazed,  under  the  bullying 
abruptness  of  Bismarck,  to  make  objection.  Such 
forceful  methods  had  not  been  in  use  hitherto, 
for  the  German  sense  of  power  had  emerged  but 
recently;  but  they  were  passed  over,  and  even 
somewhat  admired.  The  important  fact  that 
issues  from  these  details  is  that  Germany  went  at 
the  commercial  and  industrial  competition  in  a 
highly  organized  and  systematic  way ;  and  that 
it  was,  openly  or  covertly,  the  State  that  headed 
most  of  the  projects  and  saw  them  through. 
The  British  system,  or  lack  of  system,  had  been 
of  a  far  less  organized  and  artificial  and  more  of  a 
"natural"  type.  But  this  new  sort  of  thing, 
while  it  was  regarded  as  characteristic  of  German 
manners  and  lack  of  amenity,  aroused  no  special 
opposition  or  even  misgiving. 

Later  on,  however,  certain  statesmen  became 
convinced  that  Germany  was  looking  for  trouble. 
The  Kaiser's  visit  to  the  Holy  Land,  his  proclama- 
tion of  himself  as  protector  of  Islam,  the  incident 
of  Manila  Bay,  the  Moroccan  difficulties,  and  other 
events  of  like  color  and  betraying  a  certain  attitude 
of  mind,  came  to  be  cited  as  indicative  of  a  threat 
and  a  menace.  The  diplomats  conceived  a  grow- 
ing distaste  for  the  behavior  of  German  agents 


102  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

around  the  international  conference-table.  All 
these  things  could  not  be  set  down  forthwith  to 
the  account  of  Teutonic  boorishness ;  there  was 
calculation  behind  them,  and  a  policy  that  included 
an  overbearing  belligerency  and  a  frequent  laying 
of  the  fist  upon  the  saber-hilt.  But  the  apprehen- 
sions of  the  diplomats  received  no  support  in 
public  opinion  and  there  were  comparatively  few 
who  were  not  surprised  when  they  turned  out  to 
have  a  very  real  basis. 

The  unusual  and  offensive  conduct  of  the 
Germans  in  their  international  relations  is  now 
seen  to  have  been  the  inevitable  reflection  of  their 
national  code.  The  Prussian,  said  Goethe,  a 
century  ago,  is  a  brute,  and  when  he  becomes 
civilized,  he  will  be  ferocious.  But  now,  shortly 
after  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  there  occurred 
a  precipitation  of  the  German  national  solution 
under  the  master-agitation  of  a  powerful  adherent 
of  autocracy,  and  the  dominant  tinge  of  the  final 
combination  was  Prussian.  It  has  so  remained. 
With  relentless  eflficiency  the  appropriate  mores 
have  been  suggested,  transmitted,  and  inculcated 
in  an  apt  human  material.  The  Imperial  State 
was  constructed  as  a  pedestal  of  iron,  blood- 
bathed,  for  the  support  of  a  ruler  autocratic  in 
his  divine  right.     The  whole  complex  of  mores 


THE   GERMAN  CODE  103 

became  more  and  more  militaristic,  the  ostensible 
excuse  for  that  retrograde  tendency  being  the 
central  position  of  the  Fatherland,  menaced  on 
all  sides  by  its  "iron  ring"  of  enemies. 

This  code  seemed  to  be  succeeding  well  and 
became  the  prosperity-policy  of  the  nation.  Few 
cared  or  dared  to  question  or  criticize  it.  Then, 
coinciding  with  the  natural  self-assertive  tendency 
of  a  newly  unified  people,  the  conviction  as  to  its 
efficacy  developed  into  a  blind  faith  in  its  supreme 
potency,  and,  at  length,  into  a  degree  of  ethnocen- 
trism  unparalleled  among  intelligent  races.  And 
finally  arose  the  dogma  of  its  world-mission  — 
to  disseminate  the  echt  deutsche  Kultur  to  the 
benighted  or  decadent  nations.  Thus  developed 
a  doctrine. 

"If  you  want  war,"  writes  Sumner,^  "nourish  a 
doctrine.  Doctrines  are  the  most  frightful  tyrants 
to  which  men  ever  are  subject,  because  doctrines 
get  inside  of  a  man's  own  reason  and  betray  him 
against  himself.  Civilized  men  have  done  their 
fiercest  fighting  for  doctrines.  The  reconquest 
of  the  Holy  Sepulcher,  'the  balance  of  power,* 
'no  universal  dominion,'  'trade  follows  the  flag,' 
*he  who  holds  the  land  will  hold  the  sea,'  *the 
throne  and  the  altar,'  the  revolution,  the  faith  — 

1  "War  and  Other  Essays,"  pp.  36,  37.  38. 


104  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

these  are  the  things  for  which  men  have  given  their 
lives.  .  .  .  Think  what  an  abomination  in  state- 
craft an  abstract  doctrine  must  be.  Any  poHtician 
or  editor  can,  at  any  moment,  put  a  new  extension 
on  it.  The  people  acquiesce  in  the  doctrine  and 
applaud  it,  because  they  hear  the  politicians  and 
editors  repeat  it,  and  the  politicians  and  editors 
repeat  it  because  they  think  it  is  popular.  So  it 
grows." 

I  hardly  need  to  go  into  this  matter  further.  He 
who  runs  may  read  the  outcome  of  the  German 
doctrine.  It  has  led  Germany  to  hate  and  envy 
her  even  partially  successful  peaceful  rivals,  and 
to  risk  all  the  substantial  meat  she  had  by  snapping 
at  the  reflection  in  the  water.  She  wanted,  not 
her  legitimate  share  under  the  rules  of  peaceful 
competition,  but  all.  The  only  way  to  get  all  was 
to  break  the  rules.  Well,  she  was  ready,  in  her 
state  of  mores,  for  even  that. 

The  contemporary  disposition  and  code  of  the 
Germans  have  been  vigorously  summed  up  by 
Burroughs.^  He  cites  a  number  of  their  unspeak- 
able atrocities;  protests  rightly  against  the 
shallow  sophistication  that  says:  "Never  mind; 
let  it  all  pass ;   business  is  business,  and  it  will  all 

1  "Can  Peace  Make  Us  Forget  ?"  A  Plea  for  the  Ostracism  of  all 
Things  German,  in  the  New  York  Tribune  for  December  14,  1917. 


THE  GERMAN  CODE  105 

be  the  same  in  a  hundred  years ; "  and  writes  of 
German  ideas  as  follows.  I  have  seen  no  better 
condensed  summary. 

"We  do  not  want  their  ideas  or  their  methods. 
Their  ideas  are  subversive  of  our  democratic  ideals, 
and  their  methods  enslave  the  mind  and  lead  to 
efficiency  chiefly  in  the  field  of  organized  robbery. 
They  are  efficient  as  Krupp  guns  and  asphyxiating 
gas  and  liquid  fire  are  efficient.  They  invent 
nothing,  but  they  add  a  Satanic  touch  to  the  inven- 
tions of  others  and  turn  them  to  infernal  uses. 
They  are  without  sentiment  or  imagination. 
They  have  broken  completely  with  the  old  Ger- 
many of  Goethe,  of  Kant  and  Lessing,  to  whom 
we  all  owe  a  debt.  They  are  learned  in  the  roots 
of  things,  but  their  learning  is  dusty  and  musty 
with  underground  conditions.  They  know  the 
*Tree  of  Knowledge'  at  the  bottom,  but  not  at 
the  top  in  the  air  and  sun,  where  are  its  leaves  and 
flowers  and  fruit.  They  run  to  erudition,  but  not 
to  inspiration.  They  are  a  heavy,  materialistic, 
grasping  race,  forceful  but  not  creative,  military 
but  not  humanistic,  aggressive  but  not  heroic, 
religious  but  not  spiritual ;  brave  it  may  be,  but 
not  chivalrous,  utterly  selfish,  thoroughly  scientific 
and  efficient  on  a  low  plane,  as  organized  force  is 
always  efficient. 


106  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

"From  current  reports  which,  knowing  the 
Germans,  one  readily  credits,  they  are  at  this 
moment  taking  means  to  increase  their  birth  rate 
by  methods  identical  with  those  of  stock  men 
and  dog  breeders.  That  the  German  women  do 
not  defend  themselves  with  liquid  fire  and 
asphyxiating  gas  shows  that  their  morals  are  as 
low  as  those  of  the  men  and  that  they  are  the 
victims  of  the  same  civic  slavery. 

"The  Germans  have  not  fought  this  war  like 
brave,  chivalrous  men;  they  have  fought  it  like 
sneaks  and  cutthroats;  they  have  respected 
nothing  human  or  divine.  So  far  as  they  could 
make  it  so  it  has  been  an  orgy  of  lust  and 
destructiveness.  When  their  armies  are  forced 
to  retreat,  so  far  as  they  can  do  it,  they  destroy 
the  very  earth  behind  them.  They  have  done 
their  utmost  to  make  the  reconquered  territory 
of  Northern  France  uninhabitable  for  generations. 
If  they  could  poison  all  the  water,  all  the  air,  all 
the  food  of  their  enemies,  is  there  any  doubt  that 
they  would  quickly  do  so.^  If  they  could  have 
scuttled  or  torpedoed  the  British  Isles  and  sunk 
them  like  a  ship,  would  they  not  have  done  it 
long  ago.'*  Of  course  they  would  have  wanted  to 
plunder  the  treasures  and  violate  the  women  before 
doing  so,  and  then  the  Kaiser,  piously  lifting  his 


THE   GERMAN   CODE  107 

eyes  before  his  people,  would  have  again  thanked 
God  for  His  '  faithful  cooperation,'  and  again 
would  have  prated  how  he  would  continue  to 
carry  on  the  war  with  'humility  and  chivalry.'" 
An  arrogant,  grasping,  and  cruel  winner ;  a 
poor  loser,  cherishing  a  malignant  envy  toward 
rivals  —  in  short,  a  poor  player  of  the  game,  ready 
to  break  it  up  to  secure  an  advantage.  That  is 
what  the  German  code  has  made  of  the  German. 
No  wonder  that  the  peaceful  international  com- 
petition was  broken  up  by  him ;  for  it  demands  the 
same  good  sportsmanship  to  play  that  tremendous 
game  aright  as  to  engage  in  any  other  social 
undertaking  involving  competition.  No  wonder 
the  German  code  has  developed  into  a  momentous 
challenge  to  the  code  of  modern  civilization. 


XI.    THE   CHALLENGE   TO  THE  INTER- 
NATIONAL CODE 

Because  my  chief  interest  is  selection  by  war,  I 
have  felt  it  necessary  to  consider  rather  carefully 
the  constitution  of  the  peace-group,  and  of  those 
accompanying  adaptations  which  allow  of  the 
peaceful  settlement  of  issues,  that  is,  of  peaceful 
conflict  and  selection.  For  war-selection  has 
issued  in  these  structures  for  peace,  and  can  be 
understood  only  as  one  realizes  that  it  has  been 
succeeded  by  them,  and  is  now  resorted  to  that 
they  may  become  the  more  secure.  Through  war 
to  peace.  For  war  is  a  temporary  thing,  and  we 
shall  presently  return  to  peace  and  its  methods  — 
but  not  before  a  selection  has  been  wrought  at  the 
hand  of  war  which  nothing  else  but  war  can  bring 
to  pass,  and  whose  completion  must  not  be  stayed 
unless  it  is  desirable  to  have  war  invoked  again. 
The  issue  of  the  present  is  too  big  for  any  methods 
of  peaceful  settlement  ever  developed  by  the  race. 

In  this  age,  with  the  mores  of  civilization  always 
stressing  toward  peace,  a  world-conflict  such  as 

108 


CHALLENGE  TO  THE  CODE  109 

the  present  one  cannot  arise  unless  there  is  a 
vital  issue,  an  issue  over  the  essentials  of  civiliza- 
tion. To  recur  yet  once  again  to  the  smaller 
peace-group :  here  the  essentials  are  in  the 
national  code  and  are  accepted  by  nearly  all  as 
axiomatic.  But  suppose  these  essentials  are 
challenged.  Then,  while  the  minor  cases  of  di- 
vergent interests  are  composed  by  peaceful  com- 
petition, under  the  general  code,  and  upon  it  as  a 
sort  of  touchstone,  the  essentials  cannot  be  so 
settled.  For  there  can  be  no  reference  to  a  wider 
peaceful  authority  over  the  challenging  mores 
than  the  challenged  code  itself.  It  takes  revolu- 
tion and  civil  war  to  bring  about  the  composition 
of  an  issue  as  to  the  code  itself.  I  refer  again  to 
the  case  of  slavery  in  this  country.  The  lesser 
challenges  to  details  of  the  national  code  have  been 
settled  with  little  and  local  violence ;  but  when 
the  peace-group  could  not  continue  to  exist  half 
one  thing  and  half  the  other  —  without,  that  is,  a 
clean-cut  and  profound  selection  —  the  violence 
has  been  enormous  and  nation-wide. 

Similarly  in  the  case  of  the  more  comprehensive 
peace-group.  There  is  now  a  Great  War,  enlist- 
ing nearly  the  whole  of  civilization,  because  there 
was  a  challenge  to  the  essentials  of  the  code  of  the 
civilized   world.     Frantic   efforts   toT localize   the 


110  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

conflict  have  been  of  no  avail  because  the  chal- 
lenge was  directed  unmistakably  at  the  very  heart 
of  the  code  by  which  the  civilized  peoples  had 
been  living. 

It  is  true  that  the  sweeping  nature  of  the 
challenge  was  not  clear  from  the  outset.  It 
came,  in  fact,  unexpectedly  to  most  of  the  con- 
course of  nations,  and  the  gathering  revelations 
of  its  character  remained  for  some  time  incredible. 
Only  gradually  did  the  basic  issue  disengage  itself 
from  non-essentials  and  stand  forth  stark  and  bare 
before  the  unbelievers.  There  is  no  object  in 
recording  in  this  place  the  successive  stages  of 
growing  illumination  and  disillusion.  The  whole 
conflict  has  resolved  itself  into  as  pure  a  conflict 
of  codes,  joined  on  the  grandest  scale,  as  any  the 
world  ever  saw  on  the  smaller  scale ;  and  the 
selection  is  bound  to  be,  now  or  later,  as  decisive 
on  the  grandest  scale  as  any  ever  witnessed  on 
the  smaller.  The  civilized  world  cannot  continue 
to  exist  half  one  thing  and  half  the  other.  Unless 
we  are  to  turn  back  on  the  course  of  societal 
evolution,  which  is  unthinkable  in  the  absence  of 
a  summoning  change  in  life-conditions,  this  chal- 
lenge will  be  repelled  and  annihilated.  It  will 
certainly  be|so  repelled,  now  or  later,  by  the  un- 
hurried action  of  the  elemental  forces  that  are  be- 


CHALLENGE  TO  THE  CODE  111 

hind  all  societal  evolution ;  but  we  can  save  part 
of  the  cost  of  the  process,  paid  in  human  suffering, 
by  understanding  and  working  with  those  forces. 
Let  us  look  into  the  nature  of  the  challenge,  as 
at  length  revealed  in  the  event.  Perhaps  the 
central  article  of  all,  and  the  one  upon  which  the 
President  has  unerringly  fastened,  is  the  flouting 
of  international  engagements  and  covenants. 
This  strikes  at  the  only  formulation  of  the  inter- 
national code  ever  attained,  and  at  the  only 
guaranteeing  power  behind  agreements,  which  is 
national  honor.  No  civilized  nation  has  openly 
and  deliberately  assaulted  those  fundamentals 
before,  and  with  a  counter-system  in  mind.  Evi- 
dently, however,  the  German  intention  is  to  dis- 
place them  in  favor  of  something  else,  namely, 
national  necessity  backed  by  highly  organized 
force.  But  this,  of  course,  would  reduce  the 
international  peace-group  to  the  violent  chaos 
of  aforetime,  out  of  which  it  has  slowly  and  pain- 
fully emerged  at  the  cost  of  endless  human  woe. 
It  is  a  negation  of  the  very  beginnings  of  law,  and 
is  equivalent  to  the  theory  that  any  individual 
may  take  the  law  into  his  own  hands  if  he  needs 
to  and  is  strong  enough  to  defy  its  sponsors.  One 
or  the  other  of  these  theories  must  prevail ;  they 
cannot  go  on  side  by  side. 


112  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

Implicit  in  this  item  of  challenge  is  the  intention 
of  bending  all  other  interests  to  German  interests, 
and  by  violence  or  the  threat  of  such.  Consider 
the  "will-to-power"  of  a  self-styled  supreme 
nation.  But  this  idea  is  utterly  inconsonant  with 
the  international  code,  in  so  far  as  it  has  developed. 
That  code  contemplates  an  equality  of  nations  in 
their  dealings  with  one  another.  Its  contention 
is  on  the  order  of  "Live  and  Let  Live."  To  the 
Germans  the  small  and  weak  nations  —  weak 
because  small  —  have  no  reason  for  or  right  to 
independent  existence.  The  international  code, 
voiced  again  by  the  President,  holds  the  opposite 
view.  Here  again  is  a  contrast  admitting  of  no 
compromise.  It  is  no  less  a  question  than  of 
how  the  world  is  to  be  run  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt, 
now  that  the  issue  has  been  bared,  about  the 
world's  opinion  on  that  score. 

Challenge  is  thrown  down,  further,  to  the  spirit 
of  amity  between  nations  upon  a  friendly  footing ; 
it  is  proposed,  evidently,  to  return  to  suspicion, 
treachery,  and  hypocrisy ;  to  cast  aside  the 
ancient  mores  of  guestfriendship  and  to  betray 
and  use  hospitality  for  all  it  is  worth  to  the  guest. 
No  longer  are  we  to  trust  the  honor  of  a  nation  as 
signalized  in  the  honorable  conduct  of  its  official 
representatives.     This  proposition  strikes  at  the 


CHALLENGE  TO  THE  CODE  113 

only  settled  method  of  composing  peaceably  the 
divergent  interests  of  nations.  If  every  ambas- 
sador were  a  Bernstorff,  a  Luxburg,  or  a  Dumba, 
of  what  possible  utility  for  a  peace-group  could 
the  whole  system  of  representation  of  foreign 
interests  be  ?  Accredited  representatives  must  all 
be  honest  and  of  goodwill,  or  they  must  all  be 
regarded  as  enemies  within  our  lines.  The 
German  and  Austrian  ambassadors  have  been 
spies  upon  friends,  relying  upon  virtues  and 
kindliness  in  others  in  order  to  do  them  treacherous 
damage  with  impunity.  There  is  no  possibility  of 
compromise  with  this  new  theory  of  diplomatic 
relations.  Duplicity  or  honesty  —  not  half  one 
thing  and  half  the  other. 

The  challenge  is,  as  we  see,  one  involving  the 
whole  theory  of  the  international  peace-group. 
Germany  will  none  of  it.  A  whole  treatise  could 
be  written  around  this  contention.  The  issue 
at  its  broadest  is  whether  civilization  is  to  go  on 
developing  the  international  peace-group  or  to 
go  over  to  the  substitute  set  of  variations  fathered 
by  Germany,  and  now  thrust  forward  with  power. 
There  has  to  be  a  selection  here ;  and  there 
never  was  any  power  short  of  the  most  strenuous 
selective  factor  ever  developed,  namely,  war, 
that    has    any    remote    chance    of    effecting    the 


114  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

selection.  Not  a  few  minor  items,  but  all  the 
major  essentials  of  the  international  code  are 
involved  in  the  challenge.  No  more  clear-cut 
issue  was  ever  presented  to  human  society  for 
selection. 

But  let  us  go  on  with  other  items  of  challenge 
to  the  code  of  civilization,  not  involving,  perhaps, 
so  direct  an  assault  upon  the  existence  of  the 
peace-group,  but  seeking  to  abrogate  the  very 
mores  of  humanity  and  human  pity  which  naked 
savages  were  already  in  primitive  times  respect- 
ing. For  long  ages,  as  I  have  shown,  the  methods 
of  warfare  have  been  rendered  less  harsh  and  bes- 
tial by  the  spontaneous  development  of  chivalry 
and  humanity.  There  are  always  in  war  certain 
loosenings  of  the  codes  of  individuals ;  the  baser 
sort  are  freed  from  restraints,  in  their  relations 
with  members  of  the  "out-group,"  which  they 
have  perforce  observed  in  those  with  fellow  group- 
members.  But  even  between  nations  at  war  cer- 
tain taboos  have  been  honored,  at  least  in  form 
and  officially,  which  prohibited  the  most  ruthless 
conduct.  These  the  Germans  have  challenged, 
both  informally  and  officially,  cynically  remarking 
that  "Krieg  ist  Krieg'^  The  world  is  too  sophisti- 
cated to  be  impressed  with  war-paint  and  scalps, 
but  it  was  thought  that  it  could  be  cowed  by  a 


CHALLENGE  TO  THE  CODE  115 

more  elaborate,  systematic,  and  inhuman  Schreck- 
lichkeit. 

It  is  a  libel  on  the  Hun  to  use  his  face  and 
figure  to  symbolize  the  German.  For  a  long  time 
no  right-minded  man  could  believe  that  such 
things  could  be,  or  ever  had  been ;  but  he  can 
doubt  no  longer.  This  is  no  gentleman's  war ; 
it  is  not  a  war  against  civilized  people,  for  the 
code  is  the  mark  of  civilization  and  the  German 
code  is  beneath  that  of  the  Sioux  in  their  bloodiest 
days.  Is  it  needful  to  go  into  detail  ?  Let  the 
reader  examine  the  reports  of  the  Bryce  and  other 
commissions  and  reflect  upon  that  evidence.  In 
the  most  primitive  days  any  means  of  killing  the 
enemy  would  do  ;  well,  any  of  them  will  do  for  the 
German,  and  he  has  a  much  larger  choice  of  in- 
human devices.  He  is  without  chivalry  for  the 
enemy,  on  the  field  or  captive.  Toward  the  non- 
combatant  and  neutral  he  is  more  ferocious  than 
Attila,  even  with  his  dimmer  lights,  ever  was. 
Toward  the  old,  the  helpless,  and  the  children  he 
is  a  raving  beast ;  and  toward  defenseless  women 
an  incarnation  of  lust  that  no  adjective,  even 
those  coined  by  writers  on  Turk  and  Tartar,  can 
portray.  It  is  wrong  to  call  that  lust  brutal,  for 
brutes  never  use  their  females  in  such  manner ; 
and  it  is  an  injustice  to  the  most  primitive  man 


116  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

to  call  such  calculated  conduct  barbarous  or 
savage.     It  wants  a  parallel  on  earth. 

All  this  is  part  of  the  official  program  of  fright- 
fulness  ;  but  the  ultimate  purpose  is  a  popular  one, 
or  there  would  be  protest,  disobedience,  or  revolt. 
Fancy  official  orders  to  misuse  women  given  to 
American  soldiers ;  to  an  army  whose  penalty 
for  rape  is  death.  Yet  the  German  soldiers  have 
carried  out  the  orders  with  gusto ;  they  did  not 
rebuke,  nor  were  they  rebuked.  It  is  from  the 
German  nation,  not  from  a  few  of  its  rulers,  that 
this  challenge  to  humanity  derives ;  and  the 
nation  thus  betrays  itself  as  essentially  uncivil- 
ized. Its  assault  upon  civilization  must  be  re- 
pelled as  former  assaults  have  been,  if  the  code 
that  includes  what  we  most  prize  is  to  live  on. 
The  world  cannot  go  on  half-humane  and  half 
Vandal.  Schrecklichkeit  and  humanity  do  not 
mix.  The  latter  awaits  its  deliverance — its  Tours 
and  its  Martel. 

It  is,  in  a  sense,  immaterial  where  this  German 
variation  on  the  world-code  came  from,  except 
that  it  is  not  to  be  referred  to  individual,  purpose- 
ful action.  The  situation,  finally  revealed,  is  the 
challenge  of  the  loathsome  thing,  and  the  fact 
that  the  challenge  has  been  at  length  realized 
and  taken   up   by   civilization.     The   process   of 


CHALLENGE  TO  THE  CODE  117 

selection  is  on,  in  its  strongest  and  final  form. 
There  is  no  further  appeal  for  us  if  war  does 
not  bring  a  decision.  The  issue  is  the  gravest 
that  has  ever  confronted  human  society,  and  the 
selective  agency  is  present  in  a  power  never  before 
imagined.  We  face,  indeed,  a  critical  episode 
in  societal  evolution.  And  the  apprehension  of 
the  issues  involved  has  led  to  an  alignment  of 
world-opinion  on  a  scale  unparalleled  in  history. 


XII.     THE    FORMATION    OF    A    WORLD- 
OPINION 

The  striking  reversal  of  the  world's  opinion 
about  Germany  is  one  of  the  outstanding  phenom- 
ena of  the  war.  Nearly  a  score  of  nations  have 
declared  war  on  her,  and  a  number  of  others 
have  broken  off  relations.  Openly  on  her  side 
stand  her  three  vassals  —  how  willingly  we  cannot 
surely  say.  No  other  nation  has  ever  seen  the 
public  opinion  of  the  world  so  massed  against  it. 

A  thing  of  this  sort  does  not  happen  without 
reason.  But  the  significant  fact  about  this 
mobilization  of  public  opinion  is  the  spontaneity 
of  its  response.  The  planning  and  the  propa- 
ganda, along  with  the  rest  of  the  preparedness, 
were  aimed  in  another  direction.  The  masses  of 
civilized  nations  did  not  figure  out  the  broad  issue, 
and  have  not  yet  done  so ;  but  they  resented  the 
exhibitions  of  malevolence  and  feared  for  their 
own  interests.  They  went  through  no  "Pente- 
cost of  Calamity,"  but  they  came  to  know  what 
was  being  done  in  the  way  of  murder,  robbery, 

118 


FORMATION  OF  A  WORLD-OPINION       119 

violation,  and  desecration,  and  it  shocked  them. 
They  knew,  at  length,  what  women  and  children 
had  to  expect  from  the  German,  and  the  moral 
gorge  rose  within  them.  To  many  came  an  ac- 
cession of  cold  and  relentless  rage  as  they  saw 
in  the  mind's  eye  their  own  wives  and  daughters 
at  the  mercy  of  the  apostles  of  Kultur,  and  their 
young  children  mangled  or  turned  out  to  wander 
alone  and  helpless  through  a  ruined  land.  With  a 
"larger  selfishness"  they  rallied  to  the  defense 
of  the  code  of  humanity. 

It  took  overt  acts  —  conditions  and  not  theories 
—  to  bring  them  to  this  ;  and  even  then  there  was 
an  interval,  in  the  remoter  countries,  before  in- 
credulity gave  way.  It  is  significant  of  much  that 
German  public  opinion  needed  no  such  interval  of 
accommodation ;  it  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
be  shocked  or  temporarily  paralyzed  by  surprise. 
But  the  masses  in  other  nations  were  not  pre- 
pared. They  could  not  have  known  of  the  great 
Goethe's  scathing  indictment  of  the  Prussian. 
They  could  not  sense  the  irritation  of  John  Hay 
at  Prussian  "jackbootism."  They  knew  nothing 
of  German  atrocities  in  the  colonies,  in  apology 
for  which  even  German  oflScialdom  adopted  the 
term  Tropenkoller,  or  madness  of  the  tropics. 
They  were  not  in  the  way  of  hearing  of  Treitschke 


120  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

or  Der  Tag.  They  regarded  the  saber-rattling 
as  an  amusing  piece  of  boorishness,  and  the  "shin- 
ing armor"  as  the  theatrical  posturing  of  an 
imperial  gallery-player.  They  goodnaturedly  ac- 
cepted the  explanation  that  "war-lord"  was  a 
mistranslation  of  a  perfectly  innocuous  term, 
and  they  even  applauded,  a  few  years  ago,  the 
Kaiser's  pious  reminder,  on  the  occasion  of  his 
quarter-centenary  as  ruler,  that  peace,  not  war, 
had  been  near  his  heart.  True ;  there  had  been 
no  war.  There  is  always  peace  till  there  is  not. 
They  smiled  at  the  old  man's  dreams  —  good  old 
Bobs,  who,  in  his  eagerness  lest  the  common 
weal  take  harm,  saw  specters  in  broad  daylight 
—  and  at  the  young  man's  visions. 

But  the  overt  acts  came,  and  there  was  no 
denying  them ;  and  there  was  found  no  appeal 
against  them  save  to  the  sword.  Others  were 
tried  faithfully  enough,  and  patience  was  stretched 
to  the  breaking-point.  Time  was  lost,  it  may  be, 
by  our  own  long  effort  to  restore  the  peace-group 
by  peaceful  means ;  but  the  ultimate  failure  of 
that  effort  was  more  convincing  to  us  and  to  the 
world  than  anything  else  could  have  been.  It 
settled  the  fact  that  the  essence  of  the  inter- 
national code  had  been  deliberately  challenged, 
and  that  war  was  the  only  possible  arbitrament, 


FORMATION  OF  A  WORLD-OPINION        121 

for  it  was  the  only  argument  that  the  challenger 
could  understand.  If  our  protracted  patience, 
and  our  repeated  and  reiterated  reference  to  the 
essentials  of  the  code,  to  honor  and  humanity, 
had  not  availed,  certainly  no  other  and  weaker 
nation  could  hope  to  convert  and  persuade  by 
its  representations.  The  President's  repeated 
notes  not  only  revealed  that  Germany  was 
challenging  the  essentials  of  civilization,  but  they 
formulated,  as  it  had  not  before  been  formulated, 
the  code  that  was  in  peril.  It  stood  forth,  in 
the  President's  hands,  as  something  eminently 
desirable  and  indispensable.  The  vague  con- 
ceptions of  simpler  minds  were  crystallized  into 
definite  form,  for  the  exposition  of  the  essentials 
of  international  behavior  was  done  with  the  same 
sort  of  simple  clarity  that  Lincoln  was  master  of. 
And  it  was  not  alone  the  simpler  minds  that  were 
clarified  —  was  it  not  Lincoln,  again,  who  said 
that  if  a  proposition  was  stated  clearly  enough 
for  the  simple  to  understand,  the  wise  had  no 
excuse  for  not  understanding  .r*  In  any  case,  the 
sentiment  arose  that,  while  there  was  an  approved 
way  for  human  beings  and  nations  to  live  and  act, 
Germany  would  have  none  of  it,  and  meant  to 
replace  the  traditional  code  by  another  of  which 
she    was    making    a    repulsive    exhibition.     The 


122  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

alternative  was  to  renounce  the  old  code  or  fight ; 
and  the  decision  of  civilization  was  for  the  latter. 
Even  the  Allies,  already  in  the  field,  saw  better 
now  what  they  were  fighting  for,  and  took  heart 
when  they  knew  that  the  rest  of  civilization  was 
with  them. 

Evidently  the  former  international  peace-group 
has  broken  down.  There  are  now  two  peace- 
groups,  of  two  different  varieties,  fighting  one 
another.  The  initial  advantage  was  all  on  the 
challenging  side,  for,  in  addition  to  its  status  of 
readiness,  its  organization  was  better  fitted  for 
the  exercise  of  violence.  Apart  from  the  pity  of 
it,  there  was  a  question  about  the  ability  of 
essentially  peaceful,  industrial  societies  to  go  back 
and  succeed  in  violent  conflict,  to  which  they  had 
become  disaccustomed,  against  an  enemy  that 
was  never  out  of  practice.  It  was  and  has 
remained  a  question  whether  a  group  of  free 
and  independent  democracies  could  attain  to 
the  integration  of  a  group  whose  whole  control 
lay  in  a  single  dominant  body.  It  was  a  question 
of  becoming  proficient,  against  the  will,  in  a 
cruder  form  of  conflict  than  the  one  to  whose 
conditions  adjustment  had  been  made.  The 
antagonist  had  selected  his  own  weapons,  method 
of  combat,  and  time;   he  had  to  be  faced  on  his 


FORMATION  OF  A  WORLD-OPINION       123 

own  selected  ground.     It  has  been  a  grand  test 
of  adaptability  for  the  industrial  nations. 

But  the  spirit  of  civilization  has  risen  to  meet 
the  crisis.  Here  is  something,  however  repugnant, 
that  has  to  be  done.  Fire  has  to  be  fought  with 
fire.  It  will  be  done,  and  done  to  the  Queen's 
taste.  It  will  be  seen  through  to  the  end.  Only, 
Never  Again !  This  seems  to  be  the  mood  of 
the  defenders  of  civilization.  It  is  in  contrast 
with  that  of  the  assaulters  who  already  look  for- 
ward to  the  "next  war";  for,  in  their  code,  war 
is,  in  and  of  itself,  a  good  thing.  So  far  are  they 
removed  from  the  consensus  of  civilization.  But 
the  contemptible  decadent  who  did  not  wor- 
ship "Gott"  —  unsern  alien  Gott  —  has,  despite 
desperate  initial  handicaps,  frustrated  the  deep- 
laid  designs  of  Weltmacht,  and  has  shown  that, 
when  it  is  inevitable,  he  can  play  the  game  he 
does  not  wish  to  play.  Swift  adaptation  to  the 
militancy  that  they  did  not  love  has  characterized 
the  industrial  nations  ;  radical  transformations  of 
policy,  as  when  America  had  recourse  to  the 
draft,  have  revealed  an  alertness  in  adaptation 
that  no  one  suspected.  Such  radical  means  of 
adjustment  could  never  have  been  put  into  opera- 
tion among  a  free  people  if  that  people  —  the 
common  people,  the  masses  —  had  not  sensed  the 


124  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

peril  to  civilization  and  the  prospect  of  losing 
that  which  had  made  life  on  earth,  especially 
life  in  America,  worth  living.  Once  sensed,  the 
movement  to  repel  the  peril  was  as  spontaneous 
as  the  rushing  together  of  isolated  frontiersmen 
to  meet  the  menace  of  an  Indian  raid. 

I  have  said  that  it  took  overt  acts  to  rouse  the 
world's  public  opinion.  It  is  not  yet  fully  roused 
because  by  many  these  acts  are  not  yet  visualized. 
There  are  people  who  are  deficient  in  imagination 
—  in  the  power  of  visualization.  They  take  in 
only  dully  and  vaguely  that  which  does  not  enter 
their  minds  by  way  of  direct  impression  upon  the 
senses.  This  is  particularly  true  if  their  minds 
have  been  adjusted  to  altogether  different  sorts 
of  things.  Many  an  Englishman  saw  the  light 
when  he  had  viewed  an  air-raid,  and  had  perhaps 
witnessed  the  mutilation  of  children  and  the 
despair  of  mothers.  Frightfulness  did  not  intimi- 
date him,  but  roused  and  infuriated  him,  when 
once  he  had  met  it  face  to  face.  Pacifists  in  this 
country  would  not  hold  out  long  in  their  fatuity 
if  they  were  obliged,  fast-bound,  to  witness  the 
goatlike  sex-orgies  of  the  German  oflBcer  and 
soldier,  particularly  if  the  victims  were  of  their 
own  household.  The  man  with  imagination 
visualizes  these  horrors  that  shame  the  sun  with 


FORMATION  OF  A  WORLD-OPINION       125 

tightening  throat  and  implacable  anger,  and  also 
with  alarm.  For  there  is  nothing  more  invio- 
lable in  American  young  womanhood,  nor  more 
appealing  in  American  babies,  than  there  was 
in  French  and  Belgian  and  Polish  girlhood  and 
childhood. 

To  the  miimaginative  in  this  country  has  come, 
however,  a  series  of  shocks :  the  submarine  war- 
fare, the  malevolence  and  duplicity  of  diplo- 
matic agents,  the  revelations  of  the  Zimmermann 
note,  the  unbelievable  disclosures  of  the  spy 
system,  the  uncovering  of  malignant  plotting  of 
every  sort.  Some  of  these  things  have  struck 
very  near  home  —  near  enough  to  be  visualized. 
The  government  has  doled  out  authenticated 
items,  from  time  to  time,  which  seem  to  be  but 
part  of  a  larger  store.  Our  people  do  not  like 
war ;  they  hate  it.  But  all  but  the  traitors  and 
the  incurably  light-minded  want  it  now  —  want 
"this  one  more  war  to  kill  war,"  as  some  one  has 
well  put  it.  And  the  more  they  shall  sufiFer  from 
war,  and  fear  and  hate  it,  the  keener  will  they  be 
to  win  this  one.  The  opponents  of  war,  like  the 
one-time  hyphenated  Americans,  are  not  so  nu- 
merous as  they  are  noisy.  We,  like  the  English 
and  French,  are  buckling  down  soberly  as  a 
nation  to  the  Augean  task  of  cleaning  out   the 


126  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

stables  of  central  Europe,  hoping  to  lay  hand, 
at  length,  upon  a  Circe's  rod  that  will  turn  the 
Saiimensch  into  a  human  again. 

This  is  not  militarism.     It  is  militancy.     We 
have  been  obliged  to  descend  to  the  adversary's 
level,  so  far  as  to  take  up  the  gage  from  the  ground 
upon  which  it  was  flung;   but  war  is  no  creed  or 
"  -ism  "  to  the  civilized  nations  now  facing  Ger- 
many and  her  henchmen.     Civilized  public  opinion 
can  never  tolerate  remaining  on  the  German  level 
except  to  fight  the  extension  of  the  German  code ; 
and  that  is  why  "Never  Again"  means  a  definite 
decision  now.     If  there  is  no  decision,  then  we 
may  all  have  to  stay  upon  that  lower  level  so 
long,  and  to  remain  militant  in  such  an  increasing 
and  desperate  degree,  that  we  may  unlearn  our 
anti-militarism.     There  is  danger  in  an  approach 
to  militarism ;   for  it  has  a  glamour,  is  seductive, 
and  is  attended  by  what  Franklin  called  the  "pest 
of  glory."     It  is  essential  to  the  selection  that  the 
present  war  is  effecting  that  we  hold  tight  to  the 
code  of  civilization  while  we  are  utterly  destroying 
the  rank  growth  that  threatens  it.     It  is  this  latter 
that  must  be  spurlos  versenkt,  and  quickly,  too, 
I   repeat;    for    if    the   war    lasts   on   for    years, 
speedily  recurs,  or,  because  no  definitive  decision 
is  reached,  threatens  and  demands  a  huge  defensive 


FORMATION  OF  A  WORLD-OPINION       127 

organization,  we  shall  run  much  risk  of  embracing 
the  evil"  against  which  we  are  now  embattled. 

This  gathering  public  opinion  of  the  world  is 
going  to  make  itself  felt,  not  alone  in  war,  but  also, 
in  ways  peculiar  to  itself,  when  the  war  is  over. 
To  it  Germany  is  already  outside  the  pale  of 
civilization ;  and  this  war  means,  therefore,  in  a 
very  real  sense,  no  break-up  at  all,  but  a  cause  of 
strengthening  and  cohesion,  for  the  international 
peace-group.  Turkey's  past  performances  have 
never  been  taken  to  indicate  anything  concerning 
the  status  of  the  international  code ;  she  simply 
did  not  count  in  respect  to  that.  And  Ger- 
many ranks  with  Turkey,  though  infinitely  more 
treacherous  and  dangerous.  These  birds  of  a 
feather  are  now  snuggling  harmoniously  together 
on  the  same  roost.  Germany's  case  is  that  of  a 
renegade  movement  against  civilization  by  a 
professed  member  and  supporter  of  the  inter- 
national peace-group,  who  has  secretly  come  to 
sneer  at  its  code  and  has  observed  its  forms  in 
order  the  more  securely  to  assault  it.  Expulsion 
from  the  group  is  the  natural  result.  What  that 
will  mean  during  and  after  the  war  we  can  better 
judge,  perhaps,  when  we  have  considered  more 
generally  the  function,  in  societal  evolution,  of 
conflict  by  violence. 


XIII.   SELECTION  BY  WAR 

The  consideration  of  societal  selection  other 
than  by  war,  though  it  has  been  treated  not  so 
much  for  itself  as  for  its  bearing  upon  war-selec- 
tion, has  engaged  us  for  some  time ;  it  has  been 
protracted  because  of  the  number  of  aspects  which 
it  presents,  and  because  much  light  is  thrown 
upon  war-selection  by  reflecting  somewhat  care- 
fully and  fully  over  the  other  and  milder  forms 
that  have  superseded  war  to  such  a  wide  extent. 
Peaceful  selection  is  indeed  the  enlightened  and 
evolved  form  upon  which  civilization  has  prided 
itself,  and  for  which  no  excuses  or  disavowals  ever 
need  to  be  made.  But  now  we  have  seen  that 
it  is  too  fine  an  instrument  for  the  settlement  of 
the  major  and  essential  issues,  when  the  latter 
are  challenged  to  the  death.  This  sort  of  crisis 
calls  for  the  primordial  and  elemental  blood  and 
iron.  We  come,  then,  to  an  examination  of  the 
methods  and  results  of  selection  in  the  mores  as 
effected  by  war. 

It  has  been  noted  that  a  "conflict  of  the  mores" 
is  a  figure  of  speech ;    the  conflict  is  between  the 

128 


SELECTION  BY  WAR  129 

adherents  of  the  mores.  If  the  adherents  of  one 
code  are  annihilated,  selection  has  done  its  work 
in  favor  of  the  rival  code.  The  simplest  and 
most  conclusive  form  of  war-selection  is  therefore 
by  annihilation.  It  was  the  primordial  form, 
where  there  was  no  such  thing  as  quarter.  The 
Germans  have  practiced  it  in  no  small  degree, 
and  deliberately,  not  alone  on  the  battle-field, 
but  also  in  the  prison-camp  and  the  slave-quarters. 
To  the  legitimate  methods  and  instruments  of 
destruction  in  battle  have  been  added  gas  and 
fire  attacks  and  the  dissemination  of  poison  and 
disease.  Once  it  was  a  thing  to  shudder  at  when 
one  read  of  colonists  leaving  smallpox-infected 
garments  where  the  Indians  might  find  and  use 
them ;  it  was  incredibly  inhuman  and  barbarous ; 
but  now  we  are  used  to  worse  things  and  have 
even  had  to  descend  to  them  in  self-defense. 
However,  it  is  possible  to  contrast  two  striking 
expedients,  the  gas-apparatus,  and  the  "tank,'* 
as  significant  of  two  divergent  attitudes  toward 
the  proprieties  of  warfare.  The  former  —  and 
there  might  be  added  to  this  category  the  air- 
ship and  submarine,  as  employed  by  Germany  — 
represents  a  cruel  and  unusual  instrumentality, 
while  the  latter  is  a  perfectly  legitimate  variation 
on  the  instrumentalities  recognized  as  allowable 


130  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

in  civilized  warfare.  And  as  for  the  prisoners  and 
non-combatants,  the  condition  of  the  captured 
Germans  should  be  compared  with  that  of  captives 
made  by  the  Germans,  or  with  that  of  the  en- 
slaved Belgians  who  have  been  returned  to  their 
homes,  at  length,  wrecked  physically  for  life.  It  is 
clear  enough  that  the  Germans  are  not  content 
with  the  toll  of  annihilation  taken  on  the  battle- 
field; they  have  in  mind  no  less  than  annihila- 
tion of  any  and  all  who  stand  in  their  way,  and 
especially  of  the  smaller  nations.  Belgium  and 
Serbia  have  been  systematically  annihilated,  in 
so  far  as  was  possible. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  Teutonic  half-knowl- 
edge that  such  procedure  is  an  outcome  of  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Darwinian  theory.  Germans 
have  always  been  strong  in  applying  theory  from 
one  field  to  matters  of  a  quite  different  quality  in 
another  range;  it  took  Germans  to  work  out  in 
meticulous  detail  the  analogy  between  a  society 
and  an  organism,  and  finally  come  to  identify  the 
two.  There  is  no  need  of  writing  a  book,  as 
Nasmyth  ^  has  done,  to  prove  that  Darwin  coun- 
tenanced no  such  conclusions  as  have  been  drawn 
in  his  name ;  even  an  elementary  analysis  re- 
veals the  fact  that  organic  and  societal  evolution 

1  "Social  Progress  and  the  Darwinian  Theory." 


SELECTION  BY  WAR  131 

are  effective  each  on  its  own  plane,  and  according 
to  its  own  mode,  and  not  otherwise.  But  a  swift 
snatch  at  the  analogy  was  satisfactory  to  the 
German  mind,  especially  since  the  crude  con- 
clusions were  in  consonance  with  German  mores. 
It  remains  true,  however,  that  the  most  ef- 
fective societal  selection  is  secured  through  anni- 
hilation of  one  of  the  contending  codes,  through 
the  persons  of  its  adherents.  Doubtless  most  of 
the  earliest  and  most  determinative  selections  in 
the  course  of  societal  evolution  came  about  in  this 
manner.  They  are  the  ones  that  have  lasted  and 
have  laid  down  the  lines  for  the  subsequent  de- 
velopment of  society.  But,  while  war  always 
implies  partial  annihilation,  it  came,  after  a  while, 
to  be  restricted  to  that.  When  enough  antago- 
nists had  been  killed  to  weaken  the  enemy's  power 
of  resistance,  the  rest  were  enslaved.  Our  interest 
in  such  enslavement  lies  only  in  the  bearing  upon 
selection  of  this  alternative  to  annihilation.  In 
the  subjection  here  referred  to,  there  is  no  idea  of 
deliberately  producing  tuberculous  human  wrecks, 
that  is,  of  enslaving  with  the  purpose  of  annihila- 
tion at  leisure ;  the  reference  is  to  subjection  by 
conquest,  after  which  masters  and  slaves  live  side 
by  side  in  the  same  society.  In  such  a  case  there 
ensues  a  selection  in  the  mores,  but  by  no  means 


132  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

the  prevalence  of  one  code,  even  that  of  the 
masters,  in  its  original  lines.  Rather  is  there 
mutual  transmission  of  mores  and  a  composite 
product.  The  result  is  a  compounding  of  the 
two  classes  and  of  their  interests,  and,  at  length, 
a  merging  of  their  identity.  This  is  the  way 
states  have  formed.  If,  however,  the  masters 
exert  unremitting  pressure  to  extend  their  own 
code  over  the  conquered,  and  will  none  of  the 
other,  the  two  social  strata  remain  in  open  or 
latent  hostility,  as  in  Alsace,  and  refuse  to  amalga- 
mate, even  under  a  combination  of  strenuous  com- 
pulsion and  occasional  feigned  complaisance. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  if  Germany  were 
to  win,  there  would  be  a  farther  and  wider  ex- 
hibition of  what  has  occurred  in  her  conquered 
provinces  and  in  her  so-called  colonies.  And  that 
would  mean  that,  sooner  or  later,  there  would  be 
another  conflict.  No  selection  can  be  arrived  at 
in  such  manner.  Every  one  knows  that  Germany 
despaired  of  Germanizing  Alsace-Lorraine  except 
by  executing  or  banishing  the  former  inhabitants 
and  filling  their  places  with  Germans  —  that  is, 
by  annihilation ;  and  in  their  tropical  colonies  the 
same  insistence  upon' a  code  delivered  to  the 
chosen  race  by  their  GoU  has  resulted  in  almost 
unintermittent  oppression  of  the  natives  and  in 


SELECTION  BY  WAR  133 

recurrent  revolts  that  have  ushered  in  the  better 
understood  and  better  beloved  method  of  selection 
by  direct  annihilation. 

But  we  need  not  analyze  closely  these  two  forms 
of  selection,  by  annihilation  and  by  subjugation 
and  enslavement.  We  do  not  intend  to  use 
either  of  them.  They  are  obvious  enough,  and 
if  Germany  prevails  we  shall  have  an  opportunity 
of  experiencing  them  in  our  own  persons.  They 
belong  to  the  German  mores,  and  are  corollaries 
of  the  German  code  where  they  are  not  its  major 
articles.  When  we  are  told  that  the  Kaiser  will 
stand  no  nonsense  from  America  after  the  war, 
that  is  a  threat  of  precisely  the  same  mailed  fist 
which  has  banged  the  coimcil-tables  of  several 
decades,  and  has  more  recently  smitten  the  con- 
quered and  helpless  victim. 

However,  I  feel  under  no  constraint  to  believe 
or  fear  that  the  present  war  is  about  to  issue  in  the 
survival  of  the  German  code,  and  so  I  shall  con- 
fine myself  to  considering  how  the  said  conflict 
is  going  to  eliminate  that  code.  There  is  no 
prophecy  here ;  the  massed  public  opinion  of  the 
world  is  a  guarantee  that  the  challenge  to  the 
code  of  civilization  will  not,  in  the  end,  prevail. 
There  is  no  such  change  in  the  conditions  of  the 
race's  life  as  to  call  for  a  retrogression.     There  is 


134  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

no  possibility  that  societal  evolution  will  turn 
back  upon  its  course  and  land  us  again  in  ante- 
savagery.  If  the  Germans  prevail  and  we  are 
thus  reduced,  it  will  be  time  enough  then  to  ex- 
plain how  it  was  done.  This  present  war-selec- 
tion is  here  contemplated  from  the  standpoint  of 
civilization  and  its  interests,  with  the  hope  of 
better  understanding  the  massive  process  so  that 
it  may  not  be  hindered  but  allowed  to  go  on  to 
its  full  fruition.  Toward  furthering  this  end  we 
do  not  expect  to  employ  either  annihilation  or 
subjugation  of  the  German  type,  and  so  these 
processes  and  their  results  need  not  be  further 
considered. 

The  Allied  nations  could  have  used  these 
methods.  That  is,  in  theory  they  could  have  done 
so.  In  practice  they  could  not.  This  disability, 
due  to  adherence  to  the  civilized  code,  left  them 
at  a  considerable  material  disadvantage.  Not 
only  could  they  not  wantonly  kill,  murder,  or  en- 
slave, but  they  also  felt  obliged  to  assist  those  who 
had  been  conquered  and  cold-bloodedly  robbed 
by  the  adversary,  and  whom  otherwise  he  would 
have  enslaved  or  annihilated,  or  both.  The 
Allies  were  even  constrained  by  their  code  of 
humanity  to  help  the  enemy,  or  to  buy  him  off 
from   wholesale   annihilation,   by   supplying  Bel- 


SELECTION  BY  WAR  135 

gians,  Poles,  Armenians,  and  other  conquered 
peoples  with  the  means  for  living.  It  has  been  a 
heavy  task  to  fight  with  honorable  scruple  against 
an  unscrupulous  and  dishonorable  foe.  For  more 
than  three  years  American  ears  could  hardly  fail 
to  hear  the  derisive  mirth  of  the  Teuton  as  he 
reached  out  his  hand  to  profit  by  the,  to  him,  con- 
temptible and  decadent  humanity  of  America. 
What  would  he  have  done.'*  Why,  the  logical 
thing,  of  course.  Fancy  the  German,  if  the  case 
were  reversed,  assisting  the  enemy  by  feeding  and 
clothing  the  population  of  a  ravaged  district.  In 
our  place  he  would  have  withheld  all  help  from 
the  Belgians  and  Armenians ;  then  the  enemy 
could  either  have  spent  his  resources  in  main- 
taining them,  or  have  incurred  the  abhorrence  of 
the  world  by  letting  them  perish.  A  perfectly 
clear  case  of  Realpolitik.  But  self-respect  de- 
manded of  the  champions  of  civilization  that, 
except  where  response  in  kind  was  clearly  indi- 
cated as  the  sole  measure  of  self-preservation, 
there  should  be  no  recourse  to  unsavory  methods. 
Reprisals  for  air-raids  have  been  delayed,  even 
if  they  are  to  come  at  all ;  reprisals  on  German 
prisoners  for  the  miseries  and  broken  bodies  and 
spirits  of  French  and  English  captives  have  not 
taken  place.     Doubtless,  as  to  the  savage,  so  to 


136  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

the  German,  such  scruples  seem  merely  the  evi- 
dence of  weakness  and  even  cowardice  —  in  any 
case  of  decadence.  Good  old  Gott  could  not 
countenance  such  soft  procedure  and  must  give 
the  victory  to  his  own  true  and  hardy  worshipers. 
It  constitutes  a  real  handicap,  in  such  a  conflict, 
to  cherish  such  scruples. 

In  general,  then,  the  Allies  are  fighting  in  ac- 
cord with  their  civilized  code;  if  there  is  a  con- 
quest by  them,  there  will  be  no  annihilation  or 
enslavement  of  the  conquered.  It  is  not  that 
the  adversary  is  not  bad  enough,  but  that  "we 
are  too  good."  Indeed,  the  cause  for  concern  is 
quite  other,  namely,  that  there  will  be  a  mistaken 
magnanimity,  a  tendency  to  let  bygones  be  by- 
gones and  start  again,  a  willingness  to  regard  the 
criminal  as  repentant  and  reformed,  if  he  says  he 
is  —  and  then  turn  him  loose  on  the  world  again. 
This,  as  we  shall  see,  will  mean  another  war  just 
as  soon  as  Germany  has  recovered;  nothing 
could  stop  that  except  remaining  armed  to  the 
teeth,  and  squandering  the  fruits  of  industry 
upon  unproductive  devices  for  destruction.  Unless 
Germany  were  to  renounce  her  code.  Of  course 
that  is  the  essential  —  that  that  code  shall  be  re- 
nounced. But  how  can  that  come  about  if  there 
is  to  be  no  annihilation  or  subjection  with  control  ? 


SELECTION  BY  WAR  137 

From  the  beginning  there  has  been  but  one  ef- 
fective agency  that  has  led  men  to  change  their 
ways :  discomfort  amounting  to  suffering  and 
productive  of  disillusionment.  If  an  individual  is 
miserable  enough,  he  will  overhaul  his  mode  of 
life ;  if  a  society  suffers  sufficiently,  it  will  at 
length  question  its  code.  The  more  successful  the 
code  has  been,  or  has  seemed  to  be,  in  the  past  — 
the  more  inveterate  the  belief  in  it  —  the  slower 
will  the  awakening  be.  The  case  before  us  is, 
then,  a  hard  one ;  for  the  German  people  have 
had  their  code  so  exalted  before  them,  both  bla- 
tantly and  subtly,  from  babyhood  up,  that  they 
are  incapable,  even  under  great  provocation,  of 
criticizing  it.  They  are  apparently  incurably 
docile,  and  unwilling  to  form  or  incapable  of  form- 
ing an  independent  public  opinion.  This  means 
that  there  is  no  use  trying  to  reason  with  them 
—  not  yet.  It  means  that  they  must  suffer  much 
before  they  will  question,  let  alone  give  up,  their 
ways. 

It  is,  then,  the  line  of  action  for  the  Allies  to 
make  them  suffer  much,  and  resolutely  to  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  their  rulers'  calculating  proposals  to 
end  the  conflict,  until  there  shall  have  appeared 
unmistakable  fruits  meet  for  repentance.  Pro- 
tests are  of  no  further  avail,  while  the  code  is  held ; 


138  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

after  it  is  renounced,  it  can  be  reasoned  about  — 
not  before.  The  fate  of  naivete  in  this  matter  is 
being  illustrated  for  us  all  by  the  Bolsheviki. 
There  can  be  no  compromise  or  reconciliation 
between  the  German  code  and  the  code  we  are 
engaged  in  defending,  as  I  have  suflBciently 
demonstrated  above.  The  security  of  an  inter- 
national peace-group  is  out  of  the  question  until 
this  challenge  to  the  international  code  has  been 
eliminated. 

There  is,  I  have  said,  no  intention  of  annihilat- 
ing or  enslaving  the  German  nation.  To  try  to 
do  that  would  be  to  lend  adherence  to  that  course 
of  conduct  which  has  ostracized  Germany  from 
the  concourse  of  civilized  peoples.  Mere  military 
victory,  by  itself,  can  no  more  than  quell  the 
present  attempt  upon  the  code  of  civilization. 
Unless  that  victory  comes  about,  nothing  else  can 
be  done ;  but  if  it  is  not  followed  up  by  altera- 
tions and  adjustments  of  the  German  code  by 
the  German  people,  no  profound  and  definitive 
selection  will  have  taken  place.  Adjustment 
along  the  lines  of  the  international  code,  to  be 
effective  and  lasting,  must  come  from  within. 
Just  how  may  war  result  in  this  inner  alteration 
of  the  mores  ? 


XIV.   GERMAN  FETISH-WORSHIP 

Any  nation's  code  is  its  prosperity-policy,  and 
is  clung  to  because  of  the  conviction  that  it  is  an 
expedient  and  a  winning  policy  in  living.  The 
Germans  think  that  their  militarism  or  Prussian- 
ism  is  a  winning  policy.  They  have  seen  some 
of  the  advantages  which  they  have  gained  by 
it ;  and  they  have  been  adjured,  since  they  were 
able  to  understand  anything,  to  remember  that 
their  undoubted  prosperity  was  due  to  the  mili- 
tarist regime  of  the  Hohenzollerns.  That  is 
doubtless  the  conviction  of  most  Germans.  "Das 
kanonenfeste  Deutschland  "  has  long  been  paraded 
before  a  sentimental  and  suggestible  people,  not 
too  well  endowed  with  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous. 
The  "shining  armor"  and  other  stage-properties 
dazzle  their  eyes.  There  dangles  before  their 
minds  a  conception  of  the  State  as  a  sort  of  divine 
entity,  invincible,  and  personified  in  the  ruling 
dynasty,  by  whose  benevolent,  paternal,  unerring, 
and  resolute  action  they  have  been  made  the 
greatest  of  nations  and  the  world's  hope.     This 

139 


140  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

has  become  an  obsession  with  them  and  is  cor- 
relative with  the  contempt,  clumsily  veiled  or 
grossly  exposed,  which  they  feel  for  other  nations. 
It  renders  possible  the  incredibly  fatuous  ex- 
pressions of  their  public  men,  authors,  and  preach- 
ers. I  do  not  need  to  cite  illustrations  of  this 
colossal  national  self-satisfaction ;  Archer  ^  and 
others  have  compiled  typical  specimens. 

The  authorities,  themselves  at  least  partially 
auto-hypnotized  by  this  same  grandiose  vision, 
have  worked  on  fertile  soil.  It  goes  without  the 
saying  that  they  could  not  have  raised  the  crop 
they  have  raised  upon  other  ground,  say  in  France 
or  England.  The  situation,  that  is,  is  not  re- 
ferable to  a  single  individual  or  group  of  indi- 
viduals, but  to  the  automatic  development  of 
a  tjT^ical  national  character  and  code.  The 
sophisticated  leaders,  above  all  Bismarck,  re- 
peatedly took  advantage,  sometimes  with  a  candid 
cynicism,  of  the  ground  prepared  for  them.  The 
German  people  are  fetish-worshipers,  and  their 
fetishes  are  the  government  and  especially  the 
army.  The  creed  that  forms  the  rally ing-point 
for  all  their  adulations  is  militarism.  Their  god 
is  at  best  the  Yahweh  that  incited  the  peoples  of 
old  to  smite  the  rival  nation  hip  and  thigh,  with- 

^  "Gems  of  German  Thought." 


GERMAN  FETISH-WORSHIP  141 

out  mercy,  where  he  is  not  Odin  or  Thor  of  the 
Hammer.  Though  Germany  has  been  nominally 
Christian,  not  much  has  been  heard  of  the  New 
Dispensation. 

This  militarist  religion  is  the  sanction  of  mili- 
tarist mores  and  supports  them  at  every  turn.  It 
too  has  been  tested  up  and  found,  in  the  German 
view,  expedient  and  good.  Only  a  powerful 
divinity  could  have  presided  over  the  demon- 
strated prosperity  of  the  Empire.  Witness  the 
seizure  of  a  million  square  miles  of  colonies,  with 
a  population  of  ten  millions,  accomplished  within 
a  year  and  from  under  the  very  nose  of  astonished 
England.  Witness  the  German  conquest  of  the 
world-market,  engineered  by  astute  state  pa- 
ternalism. Witness  the  flocking  of  the  nations  to 
Germany  in  quest  of  knowledge  and  science  at 
their  source.  It  was  without  a  sense  of  incon- 
sistency that  all  German  literature,  art,  and  music 
were  referred  to  the  same  great  fetish :  Goethe 
and  Beethoven,  they  too  were  children  of  the  war- 
god  and  exponents  of  the  absurd  "will-to-power" 
—  discrepancies  of  an  historical  and  biographical 
nature  being  irrelevant  and  negligible  in  the  face 
of  so  blinding  a  revelation  of  national  superhuman 
superiority.  Why  should  a  nation  not  believe 
utterly   in   a   code,   or   a   prosperity-policy,   that 


142  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

could  produce  all  this  and  more?  There  were 
plenty  of  local  magi  who  could  prove  indisputably 
what  they  all  wanted  to  believe.  Nowhere  else 
has  the  truth  of  the  saying  that  the  raison  d'etre 
of  the  human  mind  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  can 
always  find  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  doing 
what  its  possessor  wants  to  do,  received  more 
triumphant  vindication  than  in  Germany. 

No  wonder  the  German  felt  aggrieved,  con- 
temptuous, and  at  length  enraged,  because  he 
was  not  understood  by  other  nations.  With  a 
divine  compassion  Eucken  writes  :  "Our  German 
Kultur  has,  in  its  unique  depth,  something  shrink- 
ing and  severe ;  it  does  not  obtrude  itself,  or 
readily  yield  itself  up ;  it  must  be  earnestly 
sought  after  and  lovingly  assimilated  from  within. 
This  love  was  lacking  in  our  neighbors ;  where- 
fore they  easily  came  to  look  upon  us  with  the 
eyes  of  hatred."  You  must  first  accept  the 
German  code  blindly  and  then  you  come,  as  one 
of  the  faithful,  to  comprehend  its  serene  beauty. 
So  might  a  paranoiac  remark  to  a  sane  man  who 
could  not  share  his  illusions,  but  was  somewhat 
uneasy  on  the  matter  of  personal  safety  in  their 
presence.  This  is  precisely  the  way  fanatics  al- 
ways talk  about  their  religions :  believe  first ; 
don't  think,  weigh,  and  reflect.     This  revelation 


GERMAN  FETISH-WORSHIP  143 

may  seem  to  be  contrary  to  knowledge  and  sense ; 
it  is  really  not  contrary  to  these,  but  above  them. 
This  is  the  time-honored  "doctrine  of  mystery." 

Now  this  simple  and  childlike  faith  is  what 
sanctions  any  and  all  departments  of  the  German 
mores.  By  it  the  national  code  is  transformed 
into  a  revelation.  The  mores,  by  themselves, 
can  make  anything  right  or  wrong;  and  a 
supernatural  sanction  can  add  to  these  attributes 
so  as  to  make  anything  also  holy  or  sacrilegious. 
Thus  a  holy  joy  may  attend  upon  the  sinking  of 
a  Lusitania;  and  a  fanatical  Hassgesang  and  a 
Gott  strafe !  may  be  launched  at  a  nation 
whose  action,  however  motived,  crosses  the 
German  will  in  the  form  of  an  impiety  sure  to  be 
divinely  punished.  It  is  all  very  ridiculous  and 
even  imbecile  in  its  preposterous  solemnity ;  no 
wonder  Tommy  causes  Fritz  to  intone  the  Hymn 
of  Hate,  and  joins  uproariously  in  the  chorus. 
Such  a  show  has  never  been  dreamt  of  before  and 
will  not  come  soon  again.  It  confirms  all  the 
impressions  derived  from  Punch  and  elsewhere, 
which  the  Germans  have  so  deeply  resented,  as  to 
Teutonic  outlandishness. 

But  now  it  is  characteristic  of  a  godlet  like  him 
of  the  Germans  that  he  invariably  "makes  good." 
He  has  to,  for  there  is,  in  his  portentous  solemnity, 


144  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

no  room  for  weakness  or  fallings-short.  We 
gentile  and  un-chosen  peoples  can  make  allow- 
ances for  our  pet  fetishes,  such  as  the  "people," 
and  even  joke  at  them  a  little,  for  we  do  not  take 
them  with  such  owl-like  seriousness.  L^se-ma- 
jeste  has  never  bothered  us  very  much.  We  have 
no  divinely  anointed  One  who  is  vulnerable  and 
even  sensitive  to  criticism,  and  who  issues  pro- 
nunciamentos,  out  of  questionable  inspiration,  on 
religion,  art,  music,  and  all  the  rest.  Also  we 
have  no  statesmen,  or  even  theologians,  who  will 
meekly  recant  in  the  face  of  a  revelation  vouch- 
safed by  the  mouth  of  authority.  We  have  here 
no  super-men,  officially  in  the  confidence  of  the 
Deity.  One  of  us  is  just  as  likely  to  get  a  revela- 
tion as  another.  We  could  laugh  appreciatively 
at  an  "7c/i  und  GoW  poem,  even  if  it  were  written 
in  derision  of  our  pet  statesman.  No,  we  are  not 
reverent  in  the  Teutonic  way.  It  is  no  wonder 
that  our  comprehension  of  Kultur  leaves  much  to 
be  desired. 

But,  as  I  said,  the  German  fetish  must  make 
good.  He  always  does,  even  if  it  takes  a  special 
revelation  to  interpret  some  of  his  doings  as  suc- 
cess. He  inspires  to  Hindenburg  victories,  after 
securing  treason  in  the  enemy's  War  Office,  not 
reporting  that  the  adversaries  had  only  crow-bars 


GERMAN  FETISH-WORSHIP  145 

to  fight  with.  And  then  he  breathes  into  the 
spirit-receptive  mind  of  the  generahssimo  the 
master-conception  of  a  victorious  retreat.  He  is 
a  curious  conducting  medium  for  information 
from  the  outside  world ;  for  out  there  too  the 
will-to-power  is  never  balked.  England  is  already 
starved  out ;  the  American  soldiers  cannot  get 
across  the  ocean ;  presently  the  Sioux  Indians 
will  take  New  York  —  what  is  Mr.  Dooley  doing 
with  his  opportunities  these  days  ?  If  one  marvels 
that  a  trustful  and  devout  people  can  be  so  taken 
in,  let  him  reflect  upon  the  skill  with  which  the 
rest  of  the  world,  and  even  of  the  suspicious  and 
hostile  world,  has  been  overreached.  The  German 
system  has  made  pretty  good,  so  far  as  actual  ac- 
complishment goes,  even  in  the  eyes  of  those  who 
would  like  to  discredit  it ;  this  is  ruefully  ad- 
mitted, although  there  is  no  desire  to  emulate  its 
methods.  What  must  it  not  enjoy  of  reputation 
amidst  a  worshipful  people  to  whom  it  is  uni- 
formly and  overwhelmingly  successful  and  who 
are  not  critical  of  its  methods  or  its  reports ,'' 

Is  a  people  so  worshipful,  and  at  the  same  time 
so  sure  of  the  divine  potency  of  its  leadership, 
going  to  revolt  with  no  provocation  ?  Not  much. 
Is  the  dusky  beneficiary  going  to  throw  over  his 
old  Mumbo  Jumbo  while  the  going  is  good  and 


146  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

while  the  priest  stands  by  to  explain  any  ap- 
parent lapses,  or  even,  by  some  wily  hocus-pocus, 
to  lend  to  real  misfortune  the  appearance  of  divine 
beneficence  ?  What  is  a  little  suffering,  with  such 
prospects,  such  ends,  and  such  a  world-mission  in 
plain  view?  The  grumblers  or  critics  are  sacri- 
legious ;  they  can  be  ignored  or  jailed.  All 
great  world-reforms  demand  sacrifice  and  steadi- 
ness of  faith.  The  devotion  of  the  German  people 
to  an  unworthy  and  a  losing  cause  is  truly  pa- 
thetic, but  there  is  no  doubt  about  its  uninformed 
sincerity.  This  national  devotion  was  grossly 
underestimated  at  first ;  there  has  been  the  same 
sort  of  disillusionment  in  this  matter  as  there  was 
concerning  the  essentially  kindly  and  humane 
character  of  the  people.  Some  of  us  hoped  for  a 
protest  of  the  people  against  the  atrocities  of  the 
army  and  navy,  but  there  was,  rather,  a  rejoicing 
among  them  and  a  pious  satisfaction  as  of  the 
saved  viewing  from  the  crystal  battlements  the 
lot  of  the  damned.  So  that,  although  the  reform 
of  German  ways  must  come  from  within,  we  have 
ceased  to  expect  it  so  soon.  As  long  as  the  present 
governmental  system  and  methods  are  in  opera- 
tion, it  is  hardly  possible  to  get  the  plain  facts 
known  by  Germans,  let  alone  interpreted  from 
an   unbiased   and    non-fantastic    point    of    view. 


GERMAN  FETISH-WORSHIP  147 

The  avenues,  temporal  and  spiritual,  for  the 
transmission  of  other  mores  are  closed. 

There  is  no  present  utility  (though  there  may  be 
a  prospective  one)  in  telling  a  fanatical  people 
that  we  are  not  fighting  them,  but  their  prepos- 
session and  religion.  Fancy  announcing  to  a 
Mohammedan  that  we  are  not  contending  against 
him,  but  against  the  Prophet  and  all  his  works. 
So  long  as  the  Germans  fervently  believe  in  their 
fetish,  they  will  hug  it  to  them  the  more  closely, 
especially  if  it  begins  to  whine  or  bluster  about  the 
impiety  of  those  who  would  put  asunder  what 
"our  good  old  God"  had  joined  irrevocably  to- 
gether. There  is  not  much  use  to  rain  down  facts 
and  tracts  out  of  aeroplanes;  they  are  "English 
lies."  The  case  of  the  Germans  is  a  refractory 
one  and  will  not  yield  to  such  milder  means  any 
more  than  it  did,  preceding  war,  to  diplomatic 
representations  and  concessions.  Then,  they 
thought,  the  Day  of  vindication  was  at  hand ; 
now  that  Day  is  here ;  and  there  is  as  yet  no 
serious  doubt  that  it  will  bring  what  was  prom- 
ised for  it.  How  foolish  to  falter  when  success 
is  right  at  hand  ! 

It  is  probable  that  the  sufferings  of  some  of 
Germany's  vassals  have  not  been  sanctified  unto 
them  as  part  of  a  grandiose  vindication  of  the 


148  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

fetish.  M.  Andre  Cheradame  ^  thinks  that  at 
least  sections  of  the  nations  which  Germany  has 
"burglarized,"  under  the  guise  of  alliance,  are  ripe 
for  a  change  of  heart,  and  argues  for  an  attempt  to 
enlighten  them  as  to  the  issues  at  stake  —  at  stake 
not  only  for  the  world,  but  for  themselves  as  well. 
He  thinks  that  the  projected  Pan-Germany  may 
thus  explode  from  within.  His  ideas  seem  reason- 
able, for  the  insulating  effect  of  the  German  ob- 
session does  not  seem  to  have  reached  to  the 
Czechs  and  other  Slavic  and  otherwise  alien  races 
of  the  Dual  Empire.  Their  severe  sufferings  and 
misgivings  are  not  interpretable  by  the  faith,  as 
sacrifices  to  a  cause,  and  a  little  propaganda 
might  do  much.  It  might,  thinks  this  writer, 
pave  the  way  for  a  decisive  German  defeat. 
Therein  lies  its  promise ;  for  there  is  no  way  out 
of  this  crucible  of  selection  except  through  that 
eventuality. 

1  "How  to  Destroy  Pan-Germany,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
December,  1917. 


XV.     THE   ONE    WAY   TO   UPSET   THE 
FETISH 

The  Germans  will  endure  pain  and  sacrifice 
without  losing  their  patience  or  docility,  so  long  as 
they  are  not  disillusioned.  I  have  said  that  their 
godlet  has  made  good  —  or  that  they  are  convinced 
that  he  has,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing. 
But  suppose  he  fails  so  egregiously  that  there 
is  no  concealment  or  interpretation  of  the  fact 
possible,  and  no  method  adequate  to  demonstrate 
that  he  has,  after  all,  won  out,  or  will  certainly  do 
so.  Suppose  that  strategic  and  victorious  retreats 
bring  the  ark  back  into  Germany  itself.  Suppose 
that  the  army  is  actually,  and  undeniably,  and  even 
admittedly  defeated,  and  the  government  over- 
thrown. Suppose  the  loot  of  Belgium  and  the 
other  conquests  has  to  be  assembled  and  restored, 
and  the  wantonness  of  destruction  paid  for.  And 
suppose,  along  with  such  happenings,  the  German 
people  finally  learn  the  unadorned  truth :  that 
England  is  not  starved  out,  that  American  soldiers 
are  really  in  Europe,  and  so  on  —  and  above  all 
the  truth  as  to  how  the  world's  opinion  stands  re- 
garding them.     Suppose  that  they  learn  that,  in- 

149 


150  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

stead  of  being  admired,  envied,  and  feared,  they 
are  the  objects  of  contempt,  loathing,  and  bitter 
resentment. 

Here  would  be  wholesale  disillusionment.  And 
here  would  be,  in  addition  to  the  former  sufferings 
—  then  sanctified  and  offered  on  the  altar,  now, 
in  retrospect,  bearing  a  different  semblance  —  fore- 
bodings of  another  and  more  racking  torture, 
that  of  living  by  tolerance  in  a  world  empty  of 
friends.  Once  it  was  England  and  America  that 
were  to  write  off  all  the  conqueror's  obligations ; 
now  it  is  the  conquered  who  must  pay  their  own, 
and  indemnity  besides.  No  people  has  ever  viewed 
a  more  waste  and  dreary  future  than  will  the  Ger- 
mans on  the  morrow  of  defeat.  On  all  sides  people 
who  have  lost  by  their  action  property,  comfort, 
peace  of  mind,  their  dearest  ones  —  not  to  mention 
those  who  have  been  actually  oppressed  and  en- 
slaved and  whose  life-treasures  have  been  preyed 
upon  by  the  orgy  of  murderousness  and  lust.  All 
about  them  peoples  who  make  no  account  of  their 
word  of  honor  and  who  have  come  to  regard 
"German"  as  synonymous  with  all  that  is  dis- 
honorable, treacherous,  and  beastly. 

Many  people  do  not  wish  their  children  to  study 
the  German  language,  and  there  is  already  a  move- 
ment on  foot  to  exclude  it  from  the  public  schools 


THE  ONE  WAY  TO  UPSET  THE  FETISH    151 

of  this  country.  There  is  more  than  a  suspicion 
that  hospitality  to  the  language,  in  the  past,  has 
been  treacherously  abused,  to  sow  discord  within 
the  nation ;  and  that  not  alone  through  the  Ger- 
man press,  but  also  through  the  school-books,  with 
their  everlasting  laudation  of  the  German  fetish. 
In  fact,  whether  or  not  the  character  of  text-books 
in  German  has  been  deliberately  manipulated  — 
and  it  is  not  at  all  unbelievable,  in  the  light  of 
what  we  have  come  to  know  —  the  prevailing 
fetish-worship  cannot  but  come  out  in  such  pub- 
lications. It  comes  out,  sad  to  say,  even  when 
the  authors  are  not  Germans.  To  one  who 
hates  what  Germany  stands  for,  it  is  revolting 
to  see  the  pictures  and  read  the  legends  that 
are  characteristic  of  German  primers ;  for  they 
reek  of  the  unclean  thing.  This  revulsion  goes 
even  farther.  A  man  has  admired  and  loved  Ger- 
man literature  of  the  earlier  and  cleaner  period, 
and  in  particular,  let  us  say,  Goethe's  master-work. 
He  knows  Goethe's  attitude  to  be  Prussian  in  no 
respect. '^     He  recalls  that  Goethe  could  not  write 

^  In  a  conversation  with  Eckermann,  in  March,  1828,  Goethe 
deplores  the  repression  of  the  German  youth,  contrasting  the  system 
that  makes  them  "  prematurely  tame "  with  the  English  "  Gliick 
der  personlichen  Freiheit."  The  conversation  is  too  long  to  be  re- 
produced here,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  giving  one  extract. 

"  Es  darf  kein  Bube  mit  der  Peitsche  knallen,  oder  singen,  oder 


152  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

war-songs,  much  less  Hymns  of  Hate,  because 
he  could  not  hate  his  spiritual  benefactors.  And 
yet  this  man  cannot  now  read  Faust  and  the 
rest  without  offense.  Schrecklich,  let  us  say, 
occurs  on  this  page,  and  what  is  the  image 
it  summons  up  ?  Here  is  a  scene  of  peasant 
Gemutlichkeit,  and  one  recalls  that  he  derived 
his  original  impression,  now  shattered,  from  such 
sources.  The  lusts  of  Walpurgisnacht — have  they 
not  come  to  earth  ?  The  very  words  are  offen- 
sive now  —  for  how  long,  one  cannot  say.  May 
this  soon  pass !  But  were  the  poet's  lines  not 
prophetic  ? 

"Weh!     Weh! 
Du  hast  sie  zerstort. 
Die  schone  Welt, 
Mit  machtiger  Faust ; 
Sie  stiirzt,  sie  zerfallt ! 
Ein  Halbgott  hat  sie  zerschlagen  ! 
Wir  tragen 

Die  Triimmern  ins  Nichts  hiniiber 
Und  klagen 
Ueber  die  verlorne  Schone." 

rufen,  sogleich  ist  die  Polizei  da,  es  ihm  zu  verbieten.  Es  geht  bei 
uns  alles  dahin,  die  Hebe  Jugend  friihzeitig  zahm  zu  machen  und 
alia  Natur,  alle  Originalitat  und  alle  Wildheit  auszutreiben,  sodass 
am  Ende  nichts  ubrigbleibt  als  der  Philister." 


THE  ONE  WAY  TO  UPSET  THE  FETISH    153 

Even  in  trade  there  will  be  an  attitude  different 
from  the  generous  one  encountered  by  Germans 
while  yet  they  were  profiting  so  successfully  in  the 
peaceful  competition,  enjoying  the  reality  of  the 
"free  seas"  for  which  they  have  lately  clamored, 
and  the  host  of  other  advantages  accorded  by  an 
enlightened  world  to  a  respected  and  efficient  com- 
petitor. Now  it  is  seen  that  Germany  is  not,  in 
any  sense  of  the  term,  a  "good  sport,"  and  still 
less  a  good  loser ;  for,  while  succeeding  notably, 
she  was  willing  to  break  the  rules  of  the  game  and 
make  a  gross  assault  upon  any  and  all  competitors 
that  were  succeeding  in  any  degree.  It  is  the  old 
and  obsolete  ideal  of  world-monopoly  that  has  ani- 
mated her.  But  now  some  of  Germany's  enemies 
have  learned,  under  necessity,  to  supply  for  them- 
selves needs  that  only  Germany  could  formerly 
meet ;  they  do  not  need  Germany  any  more. 
Among  other  disservices  that  she  has  wrought  to 
the  world,  Germany  has  apparently  demonstrated 
the  necessity  of  national  economic  self-sufficiency, 
and  so  has  contributed  to  put  off  the  day  when  ar- 
tificial barriers  to  freedom  of  trade  will  be  a  thing 
of  the  past.  This  is  a  part  of  the  damage  done  to 
civilization  which  is  not  often  mentioned,  but  it  is 
a  very  real  one.  Some  of  her  fellow-nations  will 
not  need  Germany,  I  have  said ;  and  there  will  be 


154  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

others  which  do  not  want  her,  because  they  have 
learned  to  suspect  and  disHke  her.  Who  does 
business  gladly  with  even  a  reformed  pirate  ? 

It  is  said  that  Germany  must  be  powerless  or 
free  —  meaning,  as  we  take  it  here,  free,  first  of  all, 
of  her  obsession.  It  is  the  contention  here  that 
if  she  is  rendered  powerless  by  being  conquered, 
she  will  become  free ;  but  that  she  has  little  or  no 
chance  of  becoming  free  until  she  is  decisively  de- 
feated. The  obsession  with  the  fetish  acts  as  a 
sort  of  shell  or  insulation  for  the  mores,  rendering 
them  inaccessible  to  outside  influences  and  thus 
impairing  their  power  of  adaptation  to  conditions 
which  they  do  not  sense.  The  mores  are  thus  not 
sensitive  to  environment ;  they  are  stunted  in  the 
matter  of  variation,  and  the  wholesome  action  of 
selection  is  impaired.  They  are  in  a  condition 
designated  by  zoologists  as  "spinescence."  The 
first  need,  for  better  adjustment,  is  to  strip  off  the 
insulation,  thus  invading  the  isolation;  and  to 
open  before  the  mores  a  real,  in  place  of  an  imagi- 
nary or  constructed  environment.  This  can  be 
done  only  by  the  defeat  of  the  supposedly  in- 
vincible armies  and  the  demonstration  that  mili- 
tarism is  not  the  master-key  to  the  national  and 
international  destiny.  It  is  when  Mumbo  Jumbo 
fails  to  make  good  that  they  take  him  out  and  beat 


THE  ONE  WAY  TO  UPSET  THE  FETISH    155 

him,  or  even  pitch  him  into  the  river.  A  peace 
without  victory  could  be  too  variously  and  in- 
geniously interpreted  by  interested  parties;  it 
would  mean  the  persistence  of  the  obsession  and 
its  further  manifestations  of  uncivilized  conduct 
in  international  affairs.  It  would  mean  at  least 
uneasiness  in  the  world  for  decades  to  come. 

There  are  those  who  cry  out  against  such  a  con- 
clusion, asserting  that  force  never  settles  any- 
thing ;  that  war  is  uniformly  bad  and  has  never 
brought  about  good  results.  People  who  really  be- 
lieve this  are  as  impervious  to  reason  and  fact  as 
the  Germans  themselves ;  only  a  demonstration 
in  which  they  personally  figure  can  enlighten  them. 
But  there  are  others  who  thoughtlessly  repeat 
such  foolish  assertions ;  and  perhaps  they  are 
worth  spending  words  upon.  Such  assertions 
represent  sentimentality,  not  sense.  War  is  like 
all  the  rest  of  human  things  :  not  all  good,  nor  yet 
all  bad,  but  mixed.  It  has  done  much  in  the  past 
that  nothing  else  could  have  accomplished ;  it  is 
now  performing  before  us  a  selection  not  otherwise 
to  be  hoped  for.  I  do  not  care  to  argue  an  obvious 
case,  and  so  leave  the  generalities  about  the  good 
and  evil  of  war  with  these  few  remarks  and  the  im- 
plications of  my  general  argument.  But  as  to 
force  never  accomplishing  anything,  that  too  is 


156  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

the  nonsense  of  a  fanatical  utterance.  Force  has 
underlain  all  of  the  institutions  upon  which  civi- 
lization has  most  prided  itself :  the  family,  law, 
government,  rights,  morals,  and  religion.  How 
was  the  decision  gotten  over  piracy,  or  slavery,  or 
any  other  outworn  practice  that  by  its  persistence 
constituted  a  menace  to  civilization  ?  By  arguing 
and  passing  a  resolution?  By  tearful  expostula- 
tion, or  even  by  prayer  .^^  How  did  we  get  our 
national  independence  and  start  the  infection  of 
modern  democracy  ?  By  moral  suasion  ?  It  takes 
a  conflict  to  secure  selection  and  the  survival  of 
the  fit,  I  repeat,  in  the  societal  range  as  in  the  or- 
ganic ;  and  the  more  vital  the  issue,  the  surer  it  is 
that  that  conflict  will  come  down  to  the  ultimate, 
violent,  physical  form.  If  one  wants  to  maintain 
that  an  issue  must  be  settled  by  appeal  to  reason, 
then  the  answer  is  that  both  parties  must  see 
reason.  There  is  no  argument  in  the  presence 
of  homicidal  mania  except  that  of  force  and  the 
strait-jacket.  It  is  a  pity  that  this  is  so,  but  it  is 
no  less  so  because  it  is  a  pity.  So  is  it  a  pity  that 
a  baby,  leaning  too  far  out  of  a  window,  will  fall 
to  its  death ;  but  shall  we  pass  a  resolution  against 
gravitation  ?  It  is  a  pity,  but  yet  it  is  a  fact,  that 
some  people,  especially  if  obsessed,  will  not  see 
reason  any  more  than  an  excited  and  overwrought 


THE  ONE  WAY  TO  UPSET  THE  FETISH    157 

child  will,  until  the  exuberance  of  their  unreason 
is  reduced  by  punishment.  The  strained  nerves 
are  discharged.  Then  they  are  fit  to  be  reasoned 
with,  and  not  before.  It  is  then  that  they  become 
capable  of  seeing  the  light. 

England  saw  the  light,  not  from  Burke's  ex- 
postulations but  after  her  war  with  us,  and  has 
developed  an  astonishing  capacity,  out  of  the 
maladroitness  of  the  "colonial  system  "  for  ruling 
peoples.  The  South  saw  the  light,  after  the  Civil 
War,  and  would  no  more  go  back  to  slavery  now 
than  would  the  North.  The  Boers  have  seen  the 
light.  The  days  of  the  Oom  Pauls  are  over.  No 
grander  conception  of  the  mission  and  destiny  of 
the  British  Empire  as  an  enlightened  peace-group 
was  ever  voiced  than  that  of  a  former  Boer  com- 
mander and  man  of  vision,^  now  one  of  the  bul- 
warks of  that  Empire's  Council. 

And  here  before  us  is  an  issue,  which,  as  I  have 
remarked,  dwarfs  into  insignificance  any  other 
that  the  race  has  met.  There  has  been  no  lack  of 
attempts  to  settle  it  by  way  of  peaceful  means, 
and  they  have  one  and  all  failed.  It  has  come 
down  to  a  matter  of  force,  of  killing,  and  of  misery- 
making,  and  it  must  issue  in  decisive  military  de- 
feat for  the  Germans  if  there  is  to  be  peace  in  the 

^  J.  C.  Smuts,  "  The  British  Commonwealth  of  Nations." 


158  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

world  and  an  extension  of  international  relations 
of  amity.  All  those  who  hate  force  and  war  can 
help  to  eliminate  them,  and  also  to  shorten  present 
suffering,  by  putting  all  their  powers  into  the  effort 
to  reach  the  decision  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  annihilating  or  enslaving 
Germany,  as  she  would  like  to  do  to  the  rest  of  us. 
She  expects  that,  doubtless,  judging  us  by  herself. 
It  is  a  question  of  eradicating  her  fetish-worship 
by  demonstrating  that  her  idols  have  feet  of  clay. 
Nothing  but  defeat  of  the  invincible  army  and 
government,  and  the  consequent  letting-in  of  light 
as  to  the  world's  opinion  of  her  course  can  do  that. 
If  this  is  accomplished,  she  can  make  her  own  selec- 
tion, by  revolution  or  otherwise.  This  is  a  tre- 
mendous task,  but  there  is  no  other  way  of  getting 
the  results.  The  German  government  has  been 
prodigal  of  promises,  concealments,  and  lies  to 
cover  partial  failures.  The  people  have  trusted 
it  implicitly.  After  defeat  there  will  be  no  more 
opportunity  to  conceal  or  deceive,  and  the  past, 
present,  and  prospective  suffering  of  the  people 
will  cause  them  to  ask  :  Who  got  us  into  this,  and 
why  ?  If  the  revulsion  is  sharp  enough,  the  fact  of 
maladjustment  to  the  conditions  of  life  in  the  world 
will  be  suflSciently  evident  in  the  national  loss 


THE  ONE  WAY  TO  UPSET  THE  FETISH    159 

and  pain.  In  such  case  there  will  be  no  desire  to 
return  to  the  gods  that  have  led  into  nothing  but 
desperate  calamity.  The  first  accounting  in  such 
a  case  is  not  with  the  mores,  but  with  the  false 
leaders ;  and  with  the  autocracy  and  militarism 
will  go,  unless  the  Germans  are  malevolent  by 
nature,  in  the  very  germ-plasm,  that  obsession  and 
insulation  which  have  drugged  sensitiveness  to  en- 
vironment and  thus  prevented  adjustment  along 
modern  lines. 

The  process  of  selection,  to  be  effective,  is  bound 
to  be  painful.  It  is  an  operation  where,  if  there  is 
faltering  at  the  end,  there  might  as  well  have  been 
no  cutting  at  all.  To  this  point  I  shall  return. 
But  it  is  to  be  recalled  that  Germany  is  in  the  posi- 
tion, among  nations,  of  a  criminal  outlaw  among 
his  fellow-men.  It  helps  the  wrong-doer  to  get  on 
the  right  track  if  he  is  obliged  to  repair  the  damage 
he  has  done.  The  thief  cannot  be  allowed,  even 
in  his  own  interest,  to  keep  his  plunder  subsequent 
to  his  conversion.  When  the  Allied  spokesman 
demanded  reparation,  restitution,  and  guarantees, 
he  was  calling  for  precisely  those  things  which  are 
best  for  Germany,  as  well  as  due  her  victims.  In- 
sistence upon  these  demands  is  indispensable. 
Much  there  is  that  Germany  must  pay  for,  in  years 
to  come  —  through  the  contempt  and  dislike  of  the 


160  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

world  —  for  they  cannot  be  atoned  for  in  terms  of 
material  things,  and  no  one  who  is  civilized  wants 
to  see  retaliation  in  kind.  But  what  she  can  repair 
and  restore  she  should  be  held  to  repair  and  restore 
to  the  last  item. 

I  have  said  that  nothing  but  a  military  victory 
will  do.  That  is  because  I  can  see  no  other  way 
to  upset  the  fetish,  strip  off  the  insulation,  and 
thus  expose  the  German  mores  to  the  necessity 
of  adjustment.  The  sine  qua  non  is  the  fall  of 
the  fetish.  If  that  can  be  accomplished  in  some 
other  way  that  shall  be  decisive  and  definitive, 
well  and  good.  Nevertheless  whatever  the  nature 
of  the  last  push  that  displaces  the  tottering  struc- 
ture, military  force  will  have  been  an  indis- 
pensable factor;  and  any  alternative  way  can 
scarcely  be  less  terrible.     '    '         '   '     k        7   '      i 


XVI.   ON   FALTERING   AT  THE   FINISH 

When  the  war  began  there  were  not  a  few  of  us 
who  saw  the  issue  as  a  local  thing.  Desperate 
efforts  were  being  made  to  localize  it.  Only  later 
did  it  appear  that  the  very  essence  of  civilization 
was  challenged,  and  that  the  warnings  of  Washing- 
ton about  European  entanglements  were  irrelevant 
to  an  issue  that  transcended  any  continent  or  hemi- 
sphere. Some  saw  this  after  the  rush  through 
Belgium,  others  after  the  Lusitania  episode ;  but 
it  was  over  two  years  before  public  opinion,  in  this 
relatively  remote  land,  had  sensed  the  danger  suf- 
ficiently to  support  armed  intervention. 

Similarly  slow  has  been  the  comprehension  of 
the  strength  and  system  of  preparedness  of  the 
enemy.  It  was  incredible  that  he  would  do  what 
he  did  in  the  line  of  atrocities ;  and  it  was  also  in- 
credible that  he  had  been  working  out  his  code  and 
preparing  so  long  and  so  successfully.  Even  now, 
with  not  a  little  bitter  experience  behind  us,  we 
are  from  day  to  day  amazed  and  shocked  at  the 
exhibitions   of   unscrupulous   efficiency   that   are 

161 


162  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

being  revealed  to  us.  It  is  easy  enough  to  blame 
some  one  else,  especially  some  one  in  power  whom 
we  do  not  like,  for  not  appreciating  the  whole  situa- 
tion beforehand ;  but  it  is  graceless  to  charge  any 
ruler  of  a  civilized  nation  with  sloth  or  cowardice 
because  his  mind  was  not  attuned  to  take  in  the 
bearings  of  what  he  had  to  be  brought  by  hard 
experience  to  believe  at  all.  If  there  had  been 
another  Kaiser  at  Washington,  very  likely  he 
would  have  had  a  mind  attuned  to  the  situation  as 
an  American's  was  not.  There  is  real  ground  for 
self-respect  in  the  fact  that  we  were  not  able 
readily  to  conceive  of  the  inconceivably  base.  No 
one  but  the  bitter  partisan  can  jibe  at  the  remark 
attributed  to  the  Secretary  of  War:  "I  delight 
in  the  fact  that  when  we  entered  this  war  we 
were  not,  like  our  adversary,  ready  for  it,  anxious 
for  it,  prepared  for  it,  and  inviting  it.  Accus- 
tomed to  peace,  we  were  not  ready."  "The 
overwhelming  majority  of  American  people," 
comments  Professor  Sherman,^  "will  perfectly 
understand  that  utterance  and  sympathize  with 
it.  In  exactly  the  same  sense  the  English  people, 
in  the  midst  of  a  tremendous  emergency,  have 
very  generally  pointed,    with   a    kind    of    tragic 

1  "Why  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  Rest  of  Us  Are  at  War,"  in  the 
New  York  Nation  for  November  15,  1917. 


ON   FALTERING  AT  THE  FINISH  163 

pride  and  joy,  to  the  fact  that  they  were  not  pre- 
pared, as  the  irrefutable  evidence  of  their  pacific 
intentions  and  as  the  substantial  vindication  of 
their  honor  in  the  community  of  nations." 

This  military  unpreparedness,  however,  though 
we  may  rightly  be  proud  of  it  and  of  the  spirit  be- 
hind it,  has  represented  for  us  the  same  sort  of 
handicap  that  an  unarmed  and  peaceful  citizen 
labors  under  when  he  is  suddenly  obliged  to  en- 
counter a  desperado  with  a  blackjack.  We  are 
finding  that  out.  German  efficiency  has  never 
been  as  great  or  as  thorough  as  in  the  present 
struggle ;  that  is  no  wonder,  for  it  has  put  its  best 
for  decades  into  preparation  against  "The  Day." 
At  first  it  looked  like  an  unequal  contest,  with  such 
a  preponderance  of  nations  and  numbers  on  the 
Allied  side ;  but  that  the  inequality  lay  in  the 
other  direction  speedily  became  apparent.  It  will 
never  cease  to  amaze  most  of  us  that  the  Germans 
did  not  at  once  take  Paris ;  we  are  almost  ready 
to  credit  the  tale  that  it  was  their  gluttony  and 
thirst  for  French  champagne  that  defeated  them. 
And  much  of  the  initial  advantage  still  remains  — 
above  all  the  centralization  of  control.  The  Allies 
have  admittedly  made  error  after  error,  where  the 
enemy  has  made  but  few.  This  is  natural  enough, 
for,  as  we  now  know,  the  Allies  were  to  the  Ger- 


164  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

mans  as  a  novice  in  an  odious  trade  to  an  enthu- 
siastic devotee  of  the  same. 

Except  for  the  British  navy.  For  the  German 
naval  programs  and  performances  had  been  ob- 
served by  the  Admiralty,  viewed  with  concern, 
protested  against,  and  at  length  met  with  counter- 
preparation.  Here  the  German  menace  had  been 
taken  seriously  and  the  defenses  strengthened. 
But  it  was  defense  only  that  was  contemplated; 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  British  navy  has  come  to 
be  one  of  the  most  powerful  factors  making  for 
peace  and  freedom  that  the  world  has  known,  and 
it  has  been,  in  this  war,  the  very  bulwark  of  civi- 
lization. Germany  points  at  British  navalism 
as  identical  with  the  militarism  charged  to  her; 
but  the  character  of  the  one  differs  from  that  of 
the  other  by  reason  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  arm 
of  power  is  used  or  designed  to  be  used.  There  is 
no  fetish  about  British  navalism,  if  it  is  pleasing 
to  call  it  that.  There  is  really  no  -ism  or  doctrine. 
The  doctrine  behind  German  militarism  is  now 
clearly  enough  revealed;  but  there  is  as  little  of 
that  sort  of  dogma  in  British  navalism  as  behind 
our  new  American  militancy.  Either  may  lead 
to  an  -ism  if  the  nation  in  question  becomes  suflS- 
ciently  obsessed  and  retrogressive;  but  there  is 
as  yet  no  British  or  American  tendency  toward 


ON  FALTERING  AT  THE  FINISH  165 

beating  with  the  heated  and  unbalanced  head  in 
the  dust  before  the  fetish-stool. 

The  initial  lack  of  preparedness  is  being  rapidly 
overcome.  Says  one  of  the  Cabinet  oflScers : 
"A  democracy  making  war  is  never  an  agreeable 
sight,  for  it  is  not  in  its  normal  line  of  life.  And 
those  who  sneer  or  jeer  because  it  does  not  play 
the  game  as  well  as  might  be,  pay  an  unconscious 
compliment  to  the  merits  of  free  institutions.  It 
takes  time  to  accustom  men  to  the  short,  hard 
words  of  command,  and  to  the  surrender  of  per- 
sonal judgment.  It  is  not  easy,  either,  for  a  nation 
to  turn  its  back  upon  the  conception  of  a  world 
where  justice  works  out  its  ends  by  quiet  pro- 
cesses, and  in  its  stead  come  to  the  stern  belief  that 
the  ultimate  court  is  a  battlefield.  So,  if  there  is 
wrenching  and  side-slipping  and  confusion,  there 
should  be  no  surprise.  The  surprise  to  me  has 
been  with  what  comparative  ease  the  transition 
has  been  made,  and  how  much  unconscious  prepa- 
ration for  the  new  work  had  been  already  made." 
It  is  remarkable  that  democracies  where  freedom 
of  opinion  makes  for  diffusion,  have  adjusted  them- 
selves so  rapidly  and  efifectively  to  unexpected  and 
poorly  understood  conditions.  It  simply  goes  to 
show  the  adaptability  of  a  public  opinion  unused 
to  direction  and  repression.     A  nation  which  has 


166  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

faced  for  generations  toward  production  and 
peace  must  now  aim  at  destruction  and  war.  It 
is  no  slight  task  to  swing  the  massive  engine 
about.  It  takes  time  to  beat  the  plow-share  into 
a  sword  and  to  make  of  a  professional  producer  an 
expert  destroyer.  But  there  is  another  thing  that 
is  still  harder  to  do,  and  that  is  to  steel  the 
hearts  of  humane  men  of  peace  against  prema- 
ture pity  and  softening;  to  have  them  hold 
relentlessly  to  the  noisome  task  until  it  is  done 
for  good  and  all ;  to  have  no  faltering  before  or  at 
the  finish. 

Our  adversaries  have  no  such  prospect  to  cause 
them  concern ;  no  hearts  need  to  be  steeled 
against  human  pity.  We  are,  again,  plainly  at  a 
material  disadvantage.  It  is  we,  not  the  adver- 
sary, who  have  lost  precious  lives  by  humanity 
and  chivalry.  Our  foes  do  not  mind  crying 
"Kamerad !"  and  then  opening  ranks  for  the  hid- 
den machine-guns  to  play  upon  the  unsuspecting. 
It  is  they  who  will  try,  in  straits,  to  net  us  by  plau- 
sible duplicity,  to  our  destruction.  We  do  not 
want  to  practice  any  of  these  things ;  we  are  too 
proud  to  fight  in  that  way;  but  we  must  not  be 
taken  in  any  more  by  reason  of  our  humane  im- 
pulses. 

Particularly  do  we  Americans  run  the  risk  of 


ON  FALTERING  AT  THE  FINISH  167 

insisting  foolishly  and  ignorantly  upon  stopping 
the  conflict  before  selection  is  accomplished.  Not 
a  few  of  us  seem  to  be  impressed  by  the  Russian 
formula  of  "No  annexations  and  no  indemni- 
ties." It  is  a  fair  guess  that  that  formula  origi- 
nated in  a  German  head.  What  is  happening  in 
Russia  as  the  result  of  fantastic  and  Utopian 
procedures  ought  to  give  even  a  sentimentalist 
pause.  The  trouble,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  in- 
capacity of  many  people  for  visualization  of 
actualities  not  right  at  hand.  Such  persons  are 
bleared  as  to  the  mind's  eye.  All  right-minded 
men  want  the  war  to  stop ;  but  they  want  it  to 
stay  stopped.  The  only  important  question  is  as 
to  how  soon  it  can  stop,  on  condition  that  it  shall 
satisfy  justice,  perform  its  selection,  and  so  stop 
for  good.  How  soon  can  "Never  Again!"  in 
the  matter  of  this  great  issue,  be  transformed  from 
a  fervent  purpose  into  an  assured  reality  ? 

Now,  what  some  of  us  fear,  in  connection  with 
this  "no-indemnities"  suggestion,  is  that  certain 
sentimentalists,  by  raising  a  rhythmic  clamor  that 
shall  beat  intolerably  upon  the  ears  of  a  tired 
world,  will  succeed  in  staying  the  hand  of  justice 
in  the  matter  of  restitution,  reparation,  and 
guarantees ;  and  thus  operate  to  prevent  the 
cleaning-up    of   this    whole   job    in    workmanlike 


168  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

style. ^  Presumably  such  a  movement  will  not 
originate  in  Belgium,  or  France,  or,  indeed,  among 
any  other  of  the  victims  of  Germany's  barbarities  ; 
nor  yet  among  those  who  have  been  near  enough 
to  see  and  know,  and  to  experience  righteous  in- 
dignation. It  will  be  among  the  ethical  theorists 
whose  phantasms  have  not  been  tested  by  reference 
to  fact,  and  who  can  voice  a  lofty  magnanimity 
from  a  protected  station. 

Of  all  the  Allies,  we  Americans  are  farthest  re- 
moved from  a  realization  of  what  the  Germans 
have  planned  and  done.  Even  the  French  have 
felt  that  they  must  keep  an  account  of  the  details 
of  German  ferocity  against  the  day  of  settlement. 
Over  here  we  do  not  know  even  by  hearsay  — 
least  of  all  have  we  yet  experienced  —  the  bar- 
barities which  the  French  are  afraid  they  may 
forget,  as  the  weariness  grows  more  mortal  and 
the  sensibilities  are  dulled  through  the  long  months 
of  trials  and  efforts.  But  now  we  shall  have  a 
weighty  voice  in  the  settlement  of  things.  And 
if  the  end  should  come  before  we  experience  the 
losses  and  the  heart-ache,  we  shall  be  too  likely 
to  minimize  the  wantonnesses  committed  against 

^  The  rest  of  this  chapter  is  derived,  with  insignificant  alteration , 
from  a  letter  of  the  author,  entitled  "On  Faltering  at  the  Finish,"  in 
the  New  York  Nation  for  June  7,  1917. 


ON  FALTERING  AT  THE  FINISH  169 

others,  and  shall  perhaps  wish  to  conclude  the 
task  without  bringing  it  to  a  finish.  Some  of  us 
will  harp  on  the  familiar  sentiment  that  the 
criminal  is  not  responsible,  that  punishment 
should  not  be  vindictive,  that  severity  never  acts 
as  a  deterrent ;  others  will  appeal  to  the  chivalry 
that  will  not  strike  the  opponent  when  he  is  down. 
A  number  of  people  will  want  to  be  content  with 
the  treatment  of  symptoms,  and  to  neglect  the 
extirpation  of  the  lurking  disease.  Other  scruples 
will  appear  which  do  more  credit  to  the  heart 
than  to  the  head.  And  then,  if  the  evil  is  not 
resolutely  cut  out,  it  will  resume  its  growth  and 
the  suffering  and  loss  will  have  to  be  incurred 
again,  in  more  disastrous  form,  later  on. 

The  distinction  between  hostility  to  the  German 
government  and  that  toward  the  German  people 
will  again  be  drawn.  It  is  risky  to  make  a  dis- 
tinction of  this  kind.  The  issue  is  not,  at  bottom, 
hostility  to  any  persons  ;  it  is  reprobation  of  what 
the  persons  stand  for.  But  there  is  no  doubt, 
as  we  have  said,  that  the  German  people.  Social- 
ists and  all,  have  stood  for  what  the  German 
government  and  armies  have  done.  They  have 
been  deceived,  no  doubt;  but  the  responsibility 
for  that  cannot  rest  elsewhere  than  on  themselves. 
They  have  been  dominated  by  a  fetish  ;    but  they 


170  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

bent  gladly  in  their  adulation.  If  they  were 
merely  in  error,  yet  it  is  the  way  of  the  world  that 
people  must  suffer  for  their  own  errors.  It  is 
thus  that  they  learn  to  correct  themselves  —  not 
by  being  instructed  and  excused,  over  and  over, 
but  by  bitter  experience.  It  is  not  just  that 
those  who  were  not  dominated  by  illusion,  or  had 
worked  themselves  out  of  it,  should  pay  for  the 
damage  resulting  from  the  ecstasy  and  intoxica- 
tion of  the  obsessed.  The  German  people  have 
stood  for  the  destruction  and  rape  that  have  been 
perpetrated  upon  other  people's  homes  and 
women ;  it  is  right  that  they  should  expiate  all 
this  in  the  small  and  insufficient  degree  possible. 
Much  is  irreparable ;  reparation  for  the  reparable 
should  be  sternly  exacted.  Only  thus  can  the 
illusion  and  obsession  be  dispelled.  The  way  to  see 
one's  actions  as  they  are  is  to  be  held  accountable 
for  their  results ;  and  many  a  man  changes  his 
ways  when  he  is  once  forced  to  visualize  them  as 
others  see  them.  There  are  no  fruits  more  meet 
for  repentance  than  those  tendered,  voluntarily 
or  not,  in  restitution  and  reparation. 

There  has  got  to  be  a  real  right-about  here. 
Life  would  not  be  livable  for  most  of  humanity 
if  the  German  ideas  and  power  should  prevail. 
The  fact  that  most  of  humanity  now  sees  the  peril 


ON  FALTERING  AT  THE  FINISH  171 

and  is  in  arms  against  the  dominance  of  that  for 
which  Germany  stands  is  eloquent  witness  to  this 
contention.  Here  is  the  revelation  of  a  startling 
danger  to  the  world.  It  is  like  the  discovery  of 
an  unsuspected  malignant  tumor  in  the  body. 
Now  that  we  have  had  to  go  in  with  the  knife  and 
have  uncovered  an  insidiousness  of  menace  that 
is  simply  incredible,  the  operation  should  not  be 
stayed  by  false  humanitarianism  until  the  roots 
of  the  disorder  are  removed.  This  is  not  vin- 
dictiveness  or  inhumanity ;  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
common  sense  and  an  exhibition  of  the  highest 
humanity.  The  wholesome  development  of  hu- 
man society  is  unthinkable  with  this  menace 
always  in  its  vitals.  And  as  for  hitting  an  enemy 
when  down,  who  would  apply  that  rule  of  chivalry 
to  a  serpent  ?  It  is  not  the  men  that  are  the 
target  for  the  blows,  I  repeat  —  it  is  the  thing  the 
men  stand  for ;  only,  as  long  as  they  stand  for 
the  venomous  and  detestable  thing  and  hug  it  to 
them,  they  should  expect  to  stop  the  blows  that 
are  levelled  at  it. 

The  victory  is  not  here,  but  it  is  only  delayed. 
However  long  the  delay,  it  is  not  too  early  to  con- 
sider the  terms  of  settlement.  Whatever  these 
are  to  be,  this  country  has  no  business  to  intro- 
duce palliation  for  the  culprit  where  it  has  not 


172  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

done  the  suffering.  If  any  of  the  belligerents 
who  has  borne  the  burden  and  pain  of  oppression 
and  humiliation  wants  to  ease  up  on  the  defeated 
aggressor  —  if  Belgium  or  France,  for  example, 
wishes  so  to  do  —  that  is  in  order.  But  for  us, 
who  for  many  months  have  reposed  in  a  safety 
bought  by  others'  sacrifices,  to  introduce  any 
element  of  condonement  is  worse  than  imperti- 
nent. Our  attitude  should  be  an  humble  one 
until  we  have  suffered  something  of  what  the  rest 
have  suffered  and  attained  something  of  the 
dignity  that  goes  with  it.  The  AlHes  are  not 
revengeful  barbarians ;  they  will  be  magnani- 
mous enough  without  us  to  teach  them.  They 
have  met  the  peril  face  to  face,  and  they  agree 
that  they  want  restitution,  reparation,  and  guar- 
antees. Entering  fresh,  as  we  do,  later  in  the 
struggle,  we  might  easily,  when  it  comes  to  a 
settlement,  introduce  an  element  of  easygoing 
and  careless  generosity  which  would  amount  to 
faltering  at  the  finish.  Our  part  is  to  realize  the 
seriousness  of  this  situation,  drop  all  dallying 
with  preconceptions  and  soft  imaginings,  and  see 
it  through  to  a  genuine  finish. 


XVII.   ON    INTELLIGENT    ADJUSTMENT 
TO  THE  INEVITABLE 

This  gigantic  world-convulsion  is  not  the  end 
of  all  things.  It  may  seem  so  to  the  simple- 
minded  individual  whose  horizon  is  bounded  by 
his  suffering.  Similar  periods  in  the  world's 
history  have  led  to  despairing  prophecies  of  the 
world's  end  or  of  the  advent  of  some  super- 
natural power,  as  alone  competent  to  bring  order 
out  of  bewilderment  and  confusion.  This  is  only 
the  end  of  some  things  and  the  beginning  of 
others.  If  the  great  issue  is  decided  now,  we  shall 
enter,  not  upon  a  new  and  strange  societal  order, 
but  upon  one  which  has  shaken  off  enormous  im- 
pediments and  may  now  attain,  unhampered,  to 
closer  adjustment  to  life-conditions  along  the 
lines  of  its  vindicated  code.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
the  decision  is  lost  by  us,  or  drawn,  or  not  com- 
pleted to  its  finish,  we  shall  go  on  to  the  next 
stage  of  a  protracted  period  of  conflict  and  se- 
lection, with  all  its  attendant  misery.  If  the 
civilized  world  cannot  now  rise  in  its  might,  it  will 

173 


174  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

have  to  do  so,  later  on,  amidst  throes  of  human 
pain  to  which  the  present  ones  are  as  preliminary 
twinges.  But  the  selection  will  take  place — then, 
if  not  now. 

This  war  is  not  an  unique  affair,  except  in  the 
matter  of  scale.  It  is  discharging  war's  normal 
function,  just  as  it  did  when  Roman  fought 
Carthaginian  or  when  Napoleon's  armies  swept 
over  Europe.  Every  such  war  uprooted  some 
codes  and  societal  structures  and  made  room  for 
the  persistence  and  growth  of  others.  Now,  in 
the  perspective  of  history,  reason  generally  ap- 
plauds the  results.  In  any  case  they  are  what 
has  enabled  the  modern  world  to  become  what 
it  is.  These  results  are  also  in  sequence,  ex- 
hibiting a  trend  from  a  code  we  call  savage, 
through  the  barbaric,  to  the  civilized.  Occasional 
retrograde  movements  are  to  be  found,  but  they 
are  presently  made  up  for.  Judging  by  the  past, 
it  is  unbelievable  that  civilization  can  go  back  on 
its  course  and  stay  there.  This  is  the  broad 
reason  for  inferring  that  the  cause  of  the  Allies, 
backed  by  the  approval  of  most  of  what  used  to 
be  called  the  civilized  world,  cannot  permanently 
fail.  It  cannot,  because  the  code  it  defends  is 
one  long  ago  proved  to  be  a  better  adaptation  to 
the  life-conditions   of  societies   than  a  code   in- 


ADJUSTMENT  TO  THE  INEVITABLE        175 

eluding    the    elements    which    characterize    the 
present   challenging   code. 

The  extension  of  the  peace-group  is  a  scarcely 
interrupted  evolutionary  process,  and  there  is  no 
discoverable  reason  why  it  should  not  be  further 
extended,  this  present  vicious  challenge  once 
repelled.  The  code  of  this  peace-group,  in  so 
far  as  the  latter  had  taken  form  previous  to  the 
challenge,  has  shown  no  change  in  its  essentials 
as  it  has  expanded  over  a  wider  and  wider  client- 
age. Its  democracy  is  in  the  air  and  has  been 
automatically  enlarging  its  sphere  of  influence, 
decade  by  decade,  until  the  challenge  came. 
War,  on  the  contrary,  with  militarism  and  au- 
tocracy, has  been  on  the  steady  decline  for  a  long 
time,  and  even  the  warlike,  militaristic,  and 
autocratic  peoples  have  nominally  repudiated  it. 
This  war  is  really  between  peoples  who  say  they 
are  peace-loving,  industrial,  and  democratic,  and 
are,  and  peoples  who  say  they  are  all  these  things, 
and  are  not.  Both  sides  lay  claim  to  the  more 
expedient  code  of  peace,  and  thereby  vindicate 
its  prospects  of  extension ;  both  sides  claim  to 
abhor  the  code  of  violence  and  thereby  point  to 
its  eventual  decline,  if  not  elimination.  In  view 
of  such  considerations,  I  cannot  see  a  lasting 
victory  for  any  other  code  of  international  con- 


176  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

duct  than  the  one  now  challenged.  With  such 
convictions,  it  is  impossible  to  be  permanently 
depressed  over  the  incidents  of  the  selective 
process. 

It  matters,  of  course,  that  the  Bolsheviki  are 
writing  themselves  down  in  the  Shakespearean 
fashion;  but  it  does  not  matter  vitally.  It 
matters  when  you  are  among  the  trees  but  not 
when  you  view  the  woods.  This  whole  situation 
is  quite  out  of  the  hands  of  individuals  like  Lenine, 
or  Hindenburg,  or  the  Kaiser.  Individuals  mat- 
ter some,  but  not  much,  or  vitally,  or  in  the 
long  run.  We  see  the  chips,  but  it  is  the  tide 
that  counts.  This  human  fragment  is  borne 
prominently  upon  a  tide  of  rebellion;  the  tide 
rushes  on  to  dominance  and  he  is  the  founder  of 
a  new  nation  or  dispensation ;  the  tide  is  checked 
and  turned  back,  and  he  is  a  traitor  of  inglorious 
memory;  the  tide  sweeps  forward  again,  with 
renewed  power,  and  he  is  a  martyr,  born  before 
his  time. 

Societal  evolution  is  a  vast  process,  where  the 
forces  are  massive  and  act  with  unhurried  de- 
liberation, endlessly  interlocking,  within  a  spa- 
cious field.  "Ein  wechselnd  Weben,  Ein  gliihend 
Leben."  There  are  dim  ages  of  the  process  be- 
hind us,  and  ages  untold  yet  to  come.     Selection 


ADJUSTMENT  TO  THE  INEVITABLE        177 

occurs  at  every  stage,  and  is  but  an  episode  along 
the  course. 

How  then  can  men  do  anything,  if  all  is  de- 
termined by  such  cosmic  power  ?  Why  struggle  ? 
Well,  man  can  do  something  with  gravitation, 
with  the  expansive  power  of  steam,  with  the  germ- 
plasm  stream,  although  he  can  control  the  pro- 
cesses themselves  in  no  degree.  He  can  move 
things  about,  into  the  path,  or  out  of  the  path  of 
natural  forces.  He  can  place  the  mill-wheel  be- 
neath the  falling  water.  He  can  place  the  cylinder 
in  the  way  of  the  steam.  He  can  isolate  or  bring 
together  the  sexes  of  anirdals.  This  has  been 
done  so  successfully  for  man's  interest  and  welfare 
that  man  has  conceived  the  idea  that  he  is  master 
of  nature.  But  what  he  has  done  is  to  learn 
nature's  ways  and  adapt  his  action  to  them.  At  a 
pinch  he  is  nature's  plaything  and  victim :  the 
earth  shakes  a  little,  and  his  great  works  collapse ; 
the  volcano  spills  a  little  gas  over  its  crater-rim 
upon  a  town,  and  the  lords  of  nature  lay  them 
down  and  are  still. 

It  is  not  otherwise  with  the  elemental  forces 
of  the  societal  realm.  They  cannot  be  mastered ; 
they  must  be  studied  and  known  and  adjusted 
to,  as  a  condition  of  societal  well-being.  The 
efforts  of  many  a  would-be  benefactor  and  up- 


178  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

lifter  of  the  race  are  sterile  or  even  harmful  be- 
cause he  is  trying  to  do  what  he  would  realize,  if 
he  knew  what  a  society  is,  and  what  can  and  can- 
not be  done  with  it,  to  be  out  of  the  question. 
Every  one  knows  that  water  will  not  run  uphill ; 
yet  in  the  societal  realm  there  have  been  plenty 
of  well-meaning  people,  through  the  ages,  who 
have  worn  out  and  wasted  their  lives  in  unhappi- 
ness,  trying  ineffectually  to  overcome  a  societal 
tendency  and  law  which  are  equally  inevitable. 
If  an  ignoramus  plays  about  in  a  chemical  labo- 
ratory, we  keep  our  distance,  for  we  expect  trouble 
as  a  result  of  ignorance  of  chemical  substances 
and  laws.  Knowledge  of  the  experimenter's  good 
intentions  does  not  reassure  us  at  all.  But  we 
easily  permit  the  uninformed  to  prowl  about  the 
structure  of  society,  poking  and  tinkering,  ap- 
parently in  the  belief  that,  provided  his  intentions 
are  good,  nothing  but  human  weal  can  result.  We 
are  bound  to  learn,  sometime,  that  powerful 
forces  are  at  work  within  the  societal  range,  and 
that  ignorant  tampering  is  even  more  dangerous 
here  than  elsewhere  because  so  many  more  people 
have  to  endure  the  consequences.  Then  we  shall 
want  more  knowledge  of  these  forces,  that  we 
may  adjust  to  them. 

The  present  is  a  sort  of  orgy  of  dislocation  and 


ADJUSTMENT  TO  THE  INEVITABLE        179 

of  alteration  in  the  conditions  of  society's  life. 
In  the  early  pages  of  this  little  book  I  have  cited 
a  selection  of  unplanned  and  unforeseen  adjust- 
ments that  are  already  in  the  process  of  painful 
birth.  And  I  have  gone  on  to  show  some  of  the 
exhibitions  of  the  societal  forces,  in  this  their 
period  and  phase  of  inexorable  stress  and  strain. 
Many  of  the  barriers  which  we  have  raised  be- 
tween ourselves  and  the  raw  and  remorseless  vio- 
lence of  primordial  power  have  now  broken  down 
and  must  be  painfully  built  up  again.  It  is  a  time 
for  knowledge  and  for  the  broadest  outlook.  It 
is  a  time  for  perspective  of  the  past,  that  we  may 
not  become  involved  in  vain  hopes  or  uncalled- 
for  despairs.  It  is  a  time  when  we  must  under- 
stand the  forces  determining  the  evolution  and 
life  of  human  society  as  well  as  possible,  that  we 
may  move  things  into  and  out  of  their  path  with 
the  idea  of  utilizing  their  power  in  the  interest  of 
human  well-being. 

Intelligent  adjustment  to  the  known  inevitable 
is  as  rare  on  earth  as  automatic  adjustment  to  the 
unknown  inevitable  is  common.  But  the  former 
is  an  abridged  and  less  painful  process.  Adapta- 
tion is  sure,  because  it  is  the  condition  of  comfort 
and  of  life  itself.  Adaptability  is  that  which 
hurries   and   eases   the   process.     Of   all   earthly 


180  THROUGH  WAR  TO  PEACE 

things  that  which  possesses  the  supreme  capacity 
for  swift  adaptation  is  the  human  mind.  But 
that  capacity  is  undeveloped,  fettered  in  its  action 
by  pseudo  knowledge,  bias,  caprice,  and  senti- 
mentality —  except  where  tests  and  verification 
are  immediate  and  conclusive,  and  where,  there- 
fore, knowledge  is  almost  automatically  acquired. 
Nowhere  is  real  knowledge  and  science  so  little  in 
intelligent  demand  as  in  the  societal  realm,  for  the 
latter  is  self-sown  to  whims  and  dreams  of  all 
varieties.  It  is  thought  that  man  can  here  have 
his  own  will ;  here,  at  last  and  at  least,  he  is 
lord.  He  senses  no  elemental  powers  in  the  field. 
Here,  of  all  places,  he  needs  but  to  plan  and 
"create";  pass  resolutions  and  regulations; 
think  out  Utopias  in  bed  and  then  rise  and  gird 
himself  to  their  realization ;  abolish  property  or 
the  family,  or  government,  or  religion.  Nat- 
urally he  is  taken  by  the  theory  that  societal 
evolution  is  by  individual  purposeful  action. 
Naturally  he  regards  insistence  upon  the  control 
exerted  by  spontaneous,  automatic,  and  imper- 
sonal forces  as  an  assault  upon  his  "free  will." 

Sometimes,  in  a  crisis,  the  verities  stand  forth 
and  enforce  to  themselves  an  attention  which 
they  do  not  get  in  ordinary  times.  Many  people 
are  now  perplexed  and  in  weak  despair  because 


ADJUSTMENT  TO  THE  INEVITABLE        181 

their  comfortable  little  formulas  crack  and  break 
under  the  weight  of  explanation  laid  upon  them. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  favorable  occasion  to  offer  the  con- 
tention that  "social  theory"  is  not  wholly  aca- 
demic after  all. 

But  the  thesis  of  this  little  book  is  not  thus 
general.  I  have  aimed  at  an  entirely  practical 
appHcation  of  evolutionary  theory  to  a  particu- 
lar episode  in  the  evolution  of  human  society. 
For  those  whose  convictions  run  with  mine,  a 
quite  definite  line  of  action  is  indicated.  It  is 
possible  enough  to  arrive  at  the  same  convictions 
without  going  through  a  course  of  reasoning  in 
self -justification ;  but,  as  I  said  at  the  outset,  no 
faith  was  ever  weakened  by  the  support  of  reason. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


'HE   following   pages   contain   advertisements   of 
books  by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred  subjects 


Societal  Evolution  :   A  Study  of  the  Evolu- 
tionary Basis  of  the  Science  of  Society 

By  albert  galloway  KELLER 

Professor  of  the  Science  of  Society  in  Yale  University.     New  York,  1915. 

338  pages,  i2mo,  $/.jo 

The  author  shows  that  the  evolutionary  formula  of  Darwin, 
the  terms  variation,  selection,  etc.,  can  be  carried  over  to  the 
social  field  without  resting  any  weight  on  analogy  ;  and  thus 
there  can  be  given  to  these  terms,  which  are  now  used  indis- 
criminately, in  social  writings  of  all  kinds,  something  rather 
more  sharp  in  the  way  of  connotation.  He  shows  the  nature 
of  variation  when  it  is  in  the  social  field  ;  how  social  selection 
is  related  to,  and  different  from,  natural  selection  ;  how  social 
transmission  (tradition)  is  performed,  and  what  it  does ;  and 
how  social  institutions  exhibit  adaptation  to  environment, 
natural  and  artificialized.  The  main  thought  of  the  book  lies 
in  the  discussion  of  rational  selection,  how  and  how  far  possible. 
Adaptation  shows  that  any  institution  —  settled  institution  — 
is  justifiable  in  the  setting  of  its  time,  as  an  adaptation. 

As  one  of  the  foremost  sociologists  of  the  day  has  said,  it  is 
"  a  serious  and  important  work.  Professor  Keller  carries  on 
the  interpretation  of  society  begun  by  the  late  Professor 
William  G.  Sumner,  and  greatly  adds  to  the  value  of  Sumner's 
exposition  by  this  rounding  out.  As  scientific  work,  it  is 
thoroughly  good  throughout,  sober,  well-buttressed,  and  keenly 
intelligent  at  every  point.  Every  student  of  sociology  will 
welcome  it,  and  it  is  sure  to  hold  an  important  place  for  a 
good  while  to  come.  Keller  writes  a  straightforward,  strong, 
and  clear  style.  All  in  all,  the  work  stands  out  as  greatly 
superior  to  the  run  of  sociological  writings  for  four  or  five 
years  past." 


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The  World  War  and  the  Road  to  Peace 

By  T.  B.  McLEOD 
With  an  Introduction  by  Dr.  S.  Parses  Cadman 

Boards,  i2mo 

This  volume  contains  a  judicial  considera- 
tion of  the  pacifist  positions  and  some  sound 
advice  to  the  men  holding  them.  Many  of  the 
supporters  of  pacifism  Dr.  McLeod  treats  in 
short  order,  but  he  discusses  at  considerable 
length  and  with  sympathy  what  may  be  called 
the  humanitarian  basis  for  the  pacifist.  One 
of  the  marked  features  of  the  volume  is  the 
clearness  with  which  the  author  shows  that 
Americans  are  all  essentially  pacifists  —  they 
hate  war  and  are  afraid  of  it,  but  they  are  under- 
taking this  war  because  as  Americans  they  feel 
that  all  that  this  country  believes  in  is  threat- 
ened by  German  aggression. 


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The  American  World  Policies 

By  WALTER  E.  WEYL 

Author  of  "The  New  Democracy" 

Cloth,  12° ,  $2.2$ 

The  United  States  is  deeply  concerned  with  the  peace 
which  is  to  be  made  in  Europe,  and  with  the  Great  Society 
to  be  re-constituted  after  the  war.  With  world  influence  come 
new  responsibilities,  opportunities  and  dangers.  The  book 
relates  our  foreign  policy  to  our  internal  problems,  to  the 
clash  of  industrial  classes  and  of  political  parties,  to  the 
decay  of  sectionalism  and  the  slow  growth  of  a  national 
sense.  It  is  a  study  of  "Americanism"  from  without  and 
within. 

An  Inquiry  Into  the  Nature  of  Peace 
and  the  Terms  of  Its  Perpetuation 

By  THORSTEIN  VEBLEN 

Author   of    "The   Theory    of   the    Leisure   Class,"    "Imperial 
Germany  and  the  Industrial  Revolution,"  "The 
Instinct  of  Workmanship,"  etc. 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $2.00 

Professor  Veblen's  new  book,  "The  Nature  of  Peace,"  is  a 
close  analysis  of  war  and  the  basis  of  peace.  It  is  of  special 
interest  just  now  on  account  of  its  insistence  upon  the  abso- 
lute destruction  of  the  German  Imperial  State  as  the  only 
assurance  of  a  permanent  peace.  The  ideals  towards  which 
civilization  is  moving  make  the  elimination  of  the  dynastic 
powers  absolutely  necessary.  "The  new  situation,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Veblen,  "requires  the  putting  away  of  the  German  Im- 
perial establishment  and  the  military  caste;  the  reduction  of 
the  German  peoples  to  a  footing  of  unreserved  democracy." 

Readers  of  Professor  Veblen's  other  books  will  welcome 
this  new  volume  which  is  written  in  his  usual  suggestive  and 
convincing  manner. 


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America  Among  the  Nations 

By  H.  H.  powers 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.50 

"  One  of  the  most  interesting  books  appearing  for  ages  .  .  . 
honest  as  the  day  and  fascinating  as  a  mystery  novel." 

—  Chicago  Herald. 

"  A  timely  work  for  thinking  Americans.  .  .  .  Nowhere  is 
our  position  in  relation  to  other  nations  discussed  with  greater 
clearness  and  ability  than  in  Professor  Powers'  book." 

—  New  York  Herald. 

"  America  Among  the  Nations  "  is  an  interpretation  of 
our  relation  to  foreign  nations  in  terms  of  the  great  geo- 
graphical, biological,  and  psychic  forces  which  shape 
national  destiny.  The  author's  survey  of  American  im- 
perial development  is  a  startling  revelation,  not  only  of 
our  rapidly  advanced  territorial  frontiers,  but  of  the  still 
more  strikingly  shifted  frontiers  of  our  political  philosophy. 

He  devotes  the  first  part  of  his  text  to  a  consideration 
of  America  at  home,  taking  up  such  topics  as  The  First 
Americans,  The  Logic  of  Isolation,  The  Great  Expansion, 
The  Break  with  Tradition,  The  Aftermath  of  Panama, 
Pan-Americanism,  and  The  Dependence  of  the  Tropics. 
The  second  division  is  entitled  America  Among  the  World 
Powers,  and  considers  among  other  things :  The  Greater 
Powers,  The  Mongolian  Menace,  Greater  Japan,  Germany, 
The  Storm  Center,  The  Greatest  Empire,  The  Greatest 
Fellowship. 


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